Depth report

　　

The 22nd China-ASEAN Expo (CAEXPO) signing ceremony was held in Nanning, Guangxi on September 18, 2025. A total of 155 projects were signed on the spot, including 94 industrial projects, 44 "Artificial Intelligence +" projects that empower various industries, and 17 international economic and trade projects.

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Chairman Wei Tao attended the signing ceremony and delivered a speech. In his speech, Wei Tao said that the CAEXPO and the China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit have become important open platforms for China-ASEAN cooperation and a bright card for Guangxi. Over the past 21 years, more than 200 business dialogues and investment promotion activities have been held, which have helped to promote China-ASEAN cooperation to become the most successful and dynamic model in the Asia-Pacific region. This signing ceremony is a new achievement in deepening economic and trade investment cooperation, which will effectively promote the deep integration and practical cooperation of the industrial and supply chains between China and ASEAN, and inject strong impetus into regional economic development. Currently, Guangxi is at a critical stage of taking shape and gaining momentum, entering the best period of development in its history. It is a timely and opportune choice for entrepreneurs to choose Guangxi. Guangxi will fully guarantee fair competition, fully implement preferential policies for enterprises, fully expand opening up and cooperation, fully strengthen AI empowerment, and fully optimize government services to promote the early start, construction, production and effectiveness of projects. He hopes that entrepreneurs will stick to their main business, strengthen their real economy, continuously improve the quality, efficiency and core competitiveness of enterprises, and grow and thrive in harmony with the construction of a beautiful Guangxi in the new era.

Chairman of Laos SX Group, Soulin Sanaseth, said in his speech that SX Group signed a memorandum of cooperation with the China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Innovation Cooperation Center (CAAIC), laying the framework for practical cooperation between the two sides. With the support of the governments and people of both countries, SX Group will fully promote the construction of a large-scale language model and a national-level Lao AI corpus in Laos, and connect key scenarios such as government affairs, industry, education and culture and tourism with intelligent applications, promoting seamless digital connection between China, Laos and other ASEAN countries.

When speaking, Zhou Jian, the founder, chairman of the board and CEO of Shenzhen iRobot Technology Co., Ltd., pointed out that the application of humanoid robots in the intelligent manufacturing industry has become a new frontier in global technological competition. iRobot will deepen the construction of the super factory for humanoid robots in Liuzhou, and complete it by 2025 and reach a production scale of over 1,000 units. At the same time, it will build a data collection center, promote industrial collaboration and talent empowerment, innovate diverse application scenarios, and through technology output, data foundation construction, standard leadership and ecological win-win, drive the humanoid robot industry to reach a higher level, lead the future development of human-machine collaboration, and jointly build a new hub for China-ASEAN cooperation.

Liu Jianwei, the chairman of Shenzhen Haidantu Intelligent Control Co., Ltd., stated in his speech that they will rely on the China-ASEAN Artificial Intelligence Innovation Cooperation Center to build a full-chain ecosystem of "North, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Guangxi R&D + Guangxi Integration + ASEAN Application", and link core cities such as Nanning, Liuzhou and Guilin to form a characteristic industry matrix, radiating to ASEAN to build an open pattern of cross-border technical exchange, data sharing, and industrial complementarity. They will focus on promoting the digital transformation of the electronic information industry, creating ecological operation systems such as digital early childhood education, digital agriculture, and digital health care and wellness, and jointly build the "Artificial Intelligence+" China-ASEAN Demonstration Corridor.

When Zhang Guangjun, the executive director of Hong Kong Jiantao Group, made a speech, he said that Guangxi, as the "bridgehead" for connecting with ASEAN, has provided an excellent platform for enterprises to expand their international markets and participate in international competition under the current background of deepening regional cooperation. He believes that with the strong support of the Party Committee and government of Guangxi, the projects signed and cooperated in this event will surely be successfully completed and put into operation, achieving fruitful results. He also looks forward to contributing to the prosperity and development of Guangxi.

The signing ceremony of this East Asia Expo focused on the theme of "AI takes the lead, enterprises are the main body", and centered on building an AI international cooperation highland facing ASEAN and constructing cross-regional cross-border industrial, supply chain and market chains. Efforts were made to promote the signing of a batch of landmark cooperation projects. There were 155 signed projects on the spot, including 94 industrial projects, 44 projects of "AI +" empowering various industries, and 17 international economic and trade projects.

The main features of this signing ceremony are as follows:

Firstly, AI is accelerating its integration with various industries. There are 44 "AI+" projects, covering the foundation layer, technical layer and application layer of AI, involving industries such as "AI+" manufacturing, service industry, agriculture, tourism and culture. The empowerment of various industries by AI is advancing in depth, injecting unprecedented AI energy into China-ASEAN cooperation. New projects signed include Xintai Liuzhou Automotive Electronic Intelligent Controller, Guilin Supersonic Artificial Intelligence Machine Vision, Ubiquitous Sense Humanoid Robot Data Collection, Beihai Century Internet Broadband Data Center, and Xinhua Three Huizhou Turing Town, among others, from leading AI enterprises. These projects will further improve the AI industrial ecosystem and help build an AI international cooperation highland facing ASEAN.

Secondly, cross-border industrial cooperation is becoming more active. China and ASEAN have implemented the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in a high-quality manner, strengthening market alignment, providing significant opportunities for Guangxi to leverage its comparative advantages and promote the linkage development of the China-ASEAN industrial chain and supply chain. The international economic and trade cooperation projects signed this time involve 6 ASEAN countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia. They include the construction and operation project of the China-ASEAN AI Innovation Cooperation Center in Laos; the foreign investment projects signed involve modern stone processing, comprehensive intelligent production of characteristic agricultural products, biofuels, paper processing and other industries. These projects will help both sides further strengthen policy alignment and industrial park cooperation, and promote the establishment of a more stable, smooth and based on comparative advantages regional industrial chain and supply chain system.

Thirdly, the manufacturing industry is showing a favorable clustering trend. Guangxi has placed greater emphasis on attracting manufacturing investment, with 74 manufacturing projects signed, accounting for 88% of the total investment. These projects cover industries such as mechanical equipment, petrochemicals, non-ferrous metals, new materials, light industry and textiles, and information technology. Particularly, the special support policies for manufacturing in Guangxi's border and coastal industrial parks have played a prominent role. The 4 cities along the border and coastal areas have signed 29 projects, accounting for 36.9% of the total investment.

Fourthly, major projects have a significant supporting role. Guangxi has precisely and effectively absorbed industrial transfer, and is becoming a hotbed for industrial transfer development. A total of 45 projects with an investment of 1 billion yuan or more were signed this time, covering sub-sectors such as new energy, high-end equipment, metal deep processing, key metals, biomedicine, commercial aerospace and low-altitude economy, and light industry and textiles. Among them, there are 2 projects with an investment of over 10 billion yuan and 3 projects with an investment of 50 (inclusive) to 100 billion yuan. The major projects such as Ruiwen Papermaking Guigang Green Fiber New Materials, Chongfeng New Energy Chongzuo Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Chain Base, and Longma Holding Fangchenggang Beibu Gulf Intelligent Manufacturing Port Factory will play an important leading role in accelerating the supplementation, strengthening and extension of key advantageous industries.

The heads of economic and trade promotion institutions from ASEAN countries, Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries and international organizations, the head of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the heads of relevant departments of the autonomous region, the main leaders of each prefecture-level city, as well as the heads of well-known business associations and enterprises from both China and abroad, totaling over 500 people, attended the event and jointly witnessed this historic moment.