Humanoid robots on parade during the 2026 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit.

The 2026 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, held from Monday to Thursday, gave visitors a renewed impression of Wuzhen. No longer just a poetic landmark in the Jiangnan region, the water town has become a showcase for digital civilization and a place to experience smart services.

Wuzhen is a historic town in Tongxiang, a county-level city administered by Jiaxing in Zhejiang province.

During this year's summit, Tongxiang deployed six L4 autonomous shuttle buses and opened three feeder routes connecting the Light of Internet Expo Center with the Puyuan scenic area. The autonomous vehicles can accelerate, turn and avoid obstacles smoothly.

Tongxiang also relayed real-time traffic data from more than 500 signalized intersections across the city to its buses, achieving vehicle-road coordination and smooth travel.

Before the summit, Tongxiang launched an e-book exploring its village histories, featuring an online guide map linking more than 50 distinctive sites across its 11 towns and subdistricts.

This is not a simple digitization of written records, but a way to revitalize the cultural memory scattered across the countryside, letting visitors experience the evolution of Tongxiang's villages and customs — from the agrarian age to the digital age — from multiple perspectives.

During the summit, a range of digital-intelligence experiences appeared along streets and in scenic areas. Visitors saw robot traffic guardians standing at intersections to ensure orderly travel. Fully autonomous robots in street food stalls proved a hit with visitors. Unitree's humanoid robot danced alongside costumed performers.

Visitors could watch, interact with, try out and buy artificial intelligence-powered products, making this tech journey full of fun.

Flowing waters carry a thousand years of culture, while the digital wave stirs a new zeitgeist. Wuzhen, the permanent venue for the WIC, showed how to infuse cutting-edge technology into an ancient water town.

As a core supporting event of the WIC Wuzhen Summit, the 2026 Yangtze River Delta Digital Development Conference was held on Wednesday.

In line with central and local government efforts to develop the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) international science and technology innovation center, the conference gathered more than 300 guests from government, industry, academia and research institutions. Discussions focused on topics such as AI applications in industry and mutual learning and co-building among digital-intelligence cities.

It also released the Digital Yangtze River Delta Development Report (2026) and showcased 12 pioneering AI-driven application scenarios from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.

The conference also introduced a new dialogue format, inviting representatives of five leading embodied-intelligence companies.

In recent years, Jiaxing has been turning the Wuzhen Summit's platform effect into strong momentum for regional digital development.

Behind these high-level events is Jiaxing's deep-rooted AI industry ecosystem. In the first three quarters of 2026, the city's AI industry revenue reached 71 billion yuan ($10.6 billion), up 26 percent year-on-year, with computing power and data services revenue up 55 percent.