WAICA 2026 — WAIC Academic Conference

WAICA is the academic conference track of WAIC, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai — the research-focused counterpart to WAIC's industry forum and exhibition. It gives the scientific community a dedicated venue within China's flagship AI event.

On the programme

WAICA convenes researchers for peer-reviewed and invited work across machine learning, foundation models, computer vision, natural language processing, robotics and AI theory, with talks and sessions that connect academic research to the broader WAIC programme of industry and policy.

Where it sits in today's AI

The academic track matters because China is now one of the world's two largest producers of AI research, and WAICA is where much of that domestic work is showcased alongside international participation. Its themes track the global frontier — large models, multimodal systems, embodied AI and trustworthy methods — while reflecting China's particular strengths in scaling and applied deployment. For researchers and students, it offers a direct view of Chinese AI science and a bridge between that community and the industrial and policy worlds gathered at WAIC.