China’s ‘AI Plus’ Drive Powers the Intelligent Economy
China has moved from piloting artificial intelligence to institutionalizing it. On October 9, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council publicly released the Opinions on Developing New Quality Productive Forces, a sweeping policy document that places the full implementation of the “AI Plus” (人工智能+) action at the center of the country’s economic strategy. According to Xinhua News, the plan is designed to integrate AI across industries and open what officials call a new space for intelligent-economy growth.
The stakes are substantial. The initiative spans humanoid robots, AI-powered smartphones and computers, and smart connected new-energy vehicles — concrete product categories intended to demonstrate that the strategy is more than a slogan. Officials and academics alike describe it as a structural shift in how China plans to grow.
What the Policy Actually Says
The Opinions set out 19 key measures across five innovation areas, and the AI Plus action sits within the second pillar — deep integration of technological and industrial innovation. According to the full text published on China’s State Council website, the provision calls for AI-driven transformation of traditional industries; accelerated deployment of next-generation intelligent terminals, including connected new-energy vehicles, AI phones and PCs, and humanoid robots; breakthroughs in basic theory and core technology; and efficient supply of computing power, algorithms, and data.
It also mandates national pilot bases for AI industry applications and a technology monitoring, risk-warning, and emergency-response system — a governance layer meant to keep the technology “safe, reliable, and controllable.”
Three Reasons Beijing Is Emphasizing AI Now
In an interview explaining the emphasis, an official from the National Development and Reform Commission laid out a three-part rationale, as reported by Guangming Online. First, AI is framed as a strategic technology leading a new round of industrial transformation in the digital economy era. Second, it is described as core support for building a modern industrial system. Third, the push is characterized as long-term systems engineering — not a short-term campaign.
“AI is moving from the laboratory into production and daily life, spawning new fields and tracks such as humanoid robots, autonomous flying drones, brain-computer interfaces, smart phones, smart TVs, smart computers, and smart wearables,” the official said.
The Industrial Base Behind the Policy
The policy is being sold on tangible momentum. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology estimates that China’s AI industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan (about $168 billion) in 2025, up 40 percent year-on-year. The model-and-framework layer grew 189 percent, while the application layer accounted for 55 percent of the total.
As of June 2026, China had more than 6,600 AI enterprises — roughly 15 percent of the global total — forming an industrial system spanning foundational infrastructure, model frameworks, and industry applications. China Youth Net reported the same enterprise figure in August, noting that domestic humanoid and quadruped robots account for about 80 percent of global sales.
Corporate developments back the numbers. 2026 is widely regarded as the inaugural year of humanoid robot mass production. In June, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission launched a special action targeting 10,000-unit-scale deployment capability by year-end. UBTech’s super-smart factory in Liuzhou began production in September with planned annual capacity above 10,000 units, while Zhiyuan Robot shipped more than 8,600 units in the first half of 2026 — roughly a tenfold increase.
On the consumer side, Huawei, Xiaomi, Apple, Honor, vivo, and OPPO have all released flagship AI phones and PCs, pushing competition into foldable form factors, in-house chips, and system-level “agents.”
Where the Strategy Came From
The AI Plus action is the AI-era successor to “Internet Plus,” the earlier strategy that integrated the internet across the economy. But its political lineage is more recent. The term “intelligent economy” first entered the Government Work Report in 2026, a milestone noted by 21st Century Business Herald, which framed it as a signal that AI would move from being a tool to becoming an economic foundation.
That framing was reinforced on July 30, 2026, when a Politburo meeting on second-half economic work called for “deeply implementing the ‘AI Plus’ action” and developing new forms of intelligent economy. The October Opinions effectively convert that directive into formal, systematic measures.
The Opportunities — and the Warnings
Analysts see several distinct opportunities. Gong Chao, a researcher at Tongji University’s National Institute for Innovation and Development, argued that the plan systematizes earlier AI Plus measures and creates three openings: reshaping innovation paradigms through AI for Science, upgrading the real economy via human-machine collaboration, and expanding new production factors such as data, computing power, and algorithms.
“Through AI empowering manufacturing, agriculture, services and other traditional industries, human-machine collaboration can raise total factor productivity,” Gong said.
Yet the same document issues unusually blunt cautions. It warns officials against pursuing development “for its own sake,” blind investment, and bubble-ization, and explicitly prohibits the misuse of policy in the name of new quality productive forces. Local governments that “rush headlong” into projects causing major losses will be held accountable.
That language reflects a recurring concern in Beijing: that local enthusiasm for strategic industries can produce duplication and overcapacity. The policy, in other words, is as much about discipline as it is about acceleration.
What to Watch
Three things will reveal whether the AI Plus action delivers on its promise. First, whether the 10,000-unit-scale robot deployment target is met by year-end — a test of whether manufacturing can absorb the technology at scale. Second, whether the governance framework keeps pace with deployment, an area where the document strikes its most cautious tone. And third, whether the intelligent economy genuinely becomes a “core pillar” rather than an incremental supplement to GDP.
For now, China has made its bet explicit: the next phase of growth is meant to be intelligent — and institutionalized.