AWE-inspiring Exhibition to Showcase High-tech and Openness

The Appliance & Electronics World Expo (AWE), to be held from March 12 to 15, would allow global participants to showcase their cutting-edge technology and flagship products to consumers and experts.

AWE2026, themed "Smart AI, Smarter Future," would be a "one exhibition, dual-venue" event for the first time, held in the Shanghai Eastern Hub International Business Cooperation Zone exhibition area and the Shanghai New International Expo Center, with 170,000 square meters of exhibition space and 1,200 enterprises.

Launched in 1992 by the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, AWE is held annually in Shanghai in March, showcasing home appliances, digital products, and communications devices.

The AI emphasis this year means the event would pay more attention to forging a smart living ecosystem wherein people could interact with smart devices effortlessly in the home or urban setting.

The choice of the Eastern Hub as a venue aims to tap into the hub's policy dividends to present an exhibition that is high-tech, open, and people-oriented, with a view to boosting new-quality productive forces and facilitating domestic and international "dual circulation."

The hub would create a "zero-time-difference" business zone where innovative policies and improved business services would infinitely speed up cross-border personnel and product movement in a closed management zone.

Such convenience exemplifies best practice in terms of openness and a pro-business environment.

Invited foreigners can stay in the zone for 30 days without a Chinese visa. The zone offers multilingual services, a one-stop departure protocol, and international payment options.

The zone would facilitate efficient and direct cargo flow, allowing bonded goods to move freely and benefit from preferential tax policies in compliance with regulations. Rapid customs clearance, furthermore, significantly reduces enterprises' operating costs.

The 30,000-sqm Eastern Hub, highlighting cutting-edge technology, would cater to specialist visitors, enabling them to arrive after a 15-minute trip from Pudong Airport. Given streamlined entry policies, overseas visitors can virtually head to the exhibition straight after landing at the airport, in a seamless experience.

In contrast, the 140,000-square-meter Shanghai New International Expo Center will focus on new smart life scenarios and be open to ordinary visitors by appointment through the official platform or mini-program.

Trendy and cool products, such as humanoid robots that can perform martial arts and do household chores, would point to new possibilities for future life.

Robots can also show empathy, like those that understand your feelings and talk to you as friends.

There would also be smart glasses that connect the virtual and real worlds.

Interested visitors would also have a chance to look into the cutting-edge technologies underlying these consumer-friendly products, their application, the ecosystems, the evolution of technology, and what more the future holds for us.

The whole industry chain's participation would provide new room for cooperation, with such high-profile participants as Haier, Huawei, AgiBot, and Xreal, which cover the entire industrial chain, including smart terminal chips, sensors, and large AI models.