The World AI Conference 2025, which will be held in Shanghai from July 26 to 28, will see its exhibition area hit a record high of 70,000 square meters, said the conference organizer during the WAIC's 30-day countdown news conference held on Thursday.

More than 800 companies will showcase over 3,000 frontier products and technologies, including more than 40 large language models, 50-plus AI-powered devices and another 60 smart robots at this year's WAIC, which has come to the eighth edition. It should be noted that 80 products will make their global or China debut via the WAIC, also a new record.

The exhibition will be further divided into the four themes of core technologies, industrial application, smart terminals, and universal links.

As WAIC's incubation platform, Future Tech will improve its services of transforming innovation projects into products, demonstration and financing. More than 500 startup projects from all the world have applied to be part of Future Tech this year, covering smart hardware, AI generated content, embodied intelligence, among others.

Connect platform, which serves as the procurement arm of WAIC, has already made institutional upgrading. During this year's exhibition period, Connect will come up with more than 200 purchase lists, covering urban renewal, outbound services, smart manufacturing and healthcare. Over 100 one-on-one business matchmaking activities will be held during the exhibition to address market demand more directly.

CONNECT will be extended throughout the year, which is the first such attempt, to connect to successive resources, incubate projects and link to the entire ecosystem.

Meanwhile, more than 1,200 guests from over 30 countries and regions have confirmed their participation in this year's WAIC, including 12 winners of international top-notch awards such as the Turing Award and the Nobel Prize, over 80 academicians from home and abroad, and representatives from world's leading labs.

A total of 22 new cooperation institutions of WAIC were unveiled during the Thursday news conference, including Smale Institute of Mathematics and Computation, China-BRICS Artificial Intelligence Development and Cooperation Center, and Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

The four themed exhibition areas are:

- Core technologies: LLM, computing chips and digital platforms

- Industrial application: AI-powered new-type industrialization, intelligent driving, smart city, fintech

- Smart terminals: humanoid robots, hardware, autopilot

- Universal links: connect startups and capital, demonstrate innovation results, release companies' demand, business matchmaking