At WAIC 2026 in Shanghai, we sat down with Vincent Koc @vincent_koc , Chief Architect of the OpenClaw Foundation, to revisit the open-source AI agent framework that took the global AI community by storm, drove Mac minis to sell out in China, and triggered intense debate over AI safety, security, and control. Vincent reveals what happened after the viral frenzy and the so-called “uninstall wave”: OpenClaw’s weekly NPM downloads actually climbed from 2.5 million to a record 4.2 million. Behind that growth are two very different forces—Chinese companies pushing employees to adopt AI agents through automation-driven KPIs, and Western users quietly bringing agent tools into the workplace from the bottom up. Our conversation also explores what happened after OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI. Rather than being absorbed into a single company, OpenClaw moved into an independent nonprofit foundation intended to preserve the project’s open-source identity. Peter continues to provide technical stewardship, while the Foundation has taken on the work of keeping the project alive. In the post-Claw era, the agent landscape is already being rewritten. The bigger question is: when will the "Aha moment" arrive for personal AI?

Humanoid Robots Debut at WAIC—The Resemblance Is Uncanny! WAIC 2026 wrapped up in Shanghai, with robots once again stealing the spotlight. Nothing gets the crowd going quite like a robot dancing or shaking hands. Over 200 companies gathered this year, showcasing the latest breakthroughs in humanoid robotics and embodied AIr, and honestly, it’s pretty wild to see in person. #WAIC2026# #Robotics# #HumanoidRobot# #EmbodiedAI# #Shanghai# #TechInsight# Data Source:Jiemian News, Robots: The No.1 Hard Worker at WAIC 2026, as of 2026.07.19 Risk Disclaimer: Investment involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Any forecasts, projections, or opinions contained herein are for reference only and are not guaranteed to occur. The information in this material reflects prevailing market conditions and our judgment as of the release date, which are subject to change without further notice.

As part of WAIC, Alibaba Cloud proudly hosted an AI Video Creatorthon, bringing together creators to push the boundaries of AI short films. We're excited to share the first winning submission — crafted entirely with our AI Video Generation Model, Happyhorse. The remarkable consistency and detail stand as a powerful testimony to what's possible with today's AI tools.

🟠 StepFun is at #WAIC2026# #StepFun# 🚗 ZEEKR 8X × Super EvaStep into StepFun Amoo World — a treasure-hunt map across 7 stops: 🤖 robots building the Great Wall 🎮 arcade penalty shootout w/ Amoo 📱 STEPX agent phone live demos 🗓️ Jul 17–20 📍 Shanghai World Expo Center · Hall H1 C107 Follow the route. Unlock every stop. 👇

At The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (#WAIC#) in Shanghai, #TencentCloud# hosted the “Agent in Action: From Pilots to Real-World Impact” panel with leaders from Decathlon, MiniMax, Insilico Medicine, SMG, and DANA. #DANA’s# Chief Innovation Officer Darrick Rochili shared how #AI# agents are transforming financial services — from engineering and customer support to real-time risk management and credit decisioning. Thank you to all speakers for the inspiring discussion. Watch the full video for Darrick’s in-depth insights and key takeaways!

Huawei's Atlas 950 SuperPoD debuts at WAIC 2026. The Atlas 950 SuperPoD is its flagship AI compute system for model training and inference. Built from up to 8,192 Huawei Ascend NPUs and linked by Huawei’s UnifiedBus interconnect, it is designed to deliver ultra-high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and unified memory addressing.

Robot Xiaoliu clocked in at #WAIC# 2026, and the job today? Giving massages.🤖😜 This year, embodied AI and real-world agents have taken over the show. Today we're launching our full-stack embodied AI solution, moving from disembodied to embodied, from fragmented modules to one closed loop, across four layers: → Models. The Hy-Embodied matrix: RxBrain-1.0 pairs text reasoning with visual imagination, VLM-1.0 hits flagship perception at 1/10 the compute, VLA-0.5 unifies vision, language, and action. → Agent framework. TairosAgent and Apexio integrate the brain, cerebellum, and body into one system, on the upgraded Tairos platform. → Cloud infrastructure. From GPU/HCC compute and Astral Network to TI-ONE, TokenHub, and TRTC/TRRO, covering training, serving, and real-time interaction. → Industry applications. The industry's first cloud-based EaaS, Embodied-AI-as-a-Service, taking embodied AI from breakthrough to scale.