On the morning of June 12, the BAAI Conference 2026 opened at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center. Yin Yong, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Mayor of Beijing, attended and addressed the opening ceremony.

Yin Yong said that Beijing attaches great importance to the development of artificial intelligence (AI), with China’s richest AI innovation resources, the most vibrant industrial ecosystem, and a solid foundation of new-type infrastructure. The city is making dedicated efforts to build AI into its next trillion-yuan industrial cluster. Beijing will continue to strengthen policy integration and resource coordination, participate in building the AI ecosystem, and fully support the development and expansion of all types of innovation entities, as it strives to become a world-class innovation hub. Beijing will actively explore the application of AI technologies, further implement the AI Plus Initiative, build itself into a smart city with comprehensive sensing capabilities and efficient coordination, promote the digital and intelligent transformation of government services, and accelerate AI applications in vertical fields such as healthcare and education. By using urban scenarios to drive the implementation of innovation outcomes, Beijing aims to scale AI adoption across industries and benefit households across the city. Beijing will also serve as a guardian of the AI industry. Taking safety governance as the fundamental guarantee for promoting the high-quality development of AI, the city will balance innovation-driven development and risk prevention and control, uphold open cooperation and joint risk governance, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the industry. AI enterprises and AI professionals from around the world are welcome to come to Beijing to seek growth, share opportunities, and create the future together.

Whitfield Diffie, Turing Award Laureate of 2015 and Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and Andrew Barto, Turing Award Laureate of 2024 and Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, delivered keynote speeches at the plenary session. The BAAI Progress Report was released on site, and experts, scholars, and business leaders in the field of AI held dialogues and exchanges on relevant topics. This year’s conference also features invited reports, thematic forums, special events, exhibitions and displays, and other sessions. Focusing on cutting-edge frontiers such as world models, agents, and embodied AI, the conference aims to deepen global exchanges and cooperation, bridge the gap between academic innovation and industrial application, and help advance the high-quality development of China’s artificial general intelligence (AGI) industry.

Zeng Jin, Secretary General of the Beijing Municipal Government, also attended the event.