China Meta Guide

Canton Fair

中文摘要 ↓

Chinese name
中国进出口商品交易会
Organizers
City
Guangzhou
Held
April, October
Cadence
twice-yearly
Website

State trade fairs

The Canton Fair, formally the China Import and Export Fair (中国进出口商品交易会), is China’s oldest and largest comprehensive trade fair, founded in 1957 and held every spring and autumn at the Canton Fair Complex in Guangzhou under the Ministry of Commerce and the Guangdong Provincial People’s Government, with the China Foreign Trade Centre (中国对外贸易中心) running it. Each session has three phases, from mid-April to early May and from mid-October to early November. Digital humans appear at the fair in three roles: as the organiser’s own host, as public-service agents placed there by Guangzhou government departments and professional associations, and as products and sales tools that exhibitors bring to overseas buyers.

Exhibitors used digital humans before the organiser did, starting with the livestream rooms of the online sessions. At the 132nd session, held online from 15 to 24 October 2022, the Zhongding company of Jiangsu Huihong International Group (汇鸿中鼎) used a 3D virtual presenter for the first time, custom-built by Silicon Intelligence (硅基智能) and working alongside human presenters to show products to overseas buyers. Ahead of the third phase of the 134th session in autumn 2023, Guangzhou Textiles Import and Export Group (广州纺织品进出口集团) livestreamed with AI digital humans of several nationalities, switching between foreign languages and Chinese. At the 135th session in April 2024, Zhejiang Ansheng Technology (浙江安胜科技) was livestreaming from the fair’s aisles and running AI digital human livestreams for its online business.

The organiser’s first digital human came at the 136th session (15 October to 4 November 2024), which Xinhua listed among that session’s firsts. Xiaohui (小惠), styled as a female news presenter, appeared in the fair’s promotional short videos to announce forums and events and to walk exhibitors and buyers through the online platform, which was launched alongside the new Canton Fair App and 18 upgraded platform functions. She also co-hosted the fair’s “Haobao and Haoni Explore the Canton Fair” (好宝、好妮探广交) livestreams with its cartoon mascots Haobao (好宝) and Haoni (好妮). She was still in use a year later, presenting app tutorial videos on the fair’s official Douyin account during the 138th session in October 2025.

At the 137th session (15 April to 5 May 2025), Sui Xiaoying (穗小颖), the AI media presenter of the Guangzhou tax bureau (国家税务总局广州市税务局), made her first appearance at the tax service station (税收服务驿站) in the exhibition halls, explaining the instant departure tax refund for overseas visitors. The Guangzhou Municipal Justice Bureau (广州市司法局), which has run the Guangzhou Foreign-Related Legal Consultation Service Port (广州市涉外法律咨询服务港) at the fair since the 135th session, produced 38 multilingual legal-education short videos for the session, combining human presenters with AI digital humans, and published them on Douyin and Xiaohongshu. Shandong Digihuman Technology (山东数字人科技) exhibited its virtual anatomy table and digital human anatomy systems, digitised human bodies for medical teaching.

At the 138th session (15 October to 4 November 2025), the AI Trade Ecosystem Development Forum (AI贸易生态发展论坛) on 18 October, organised by the China Foreign Trade Centre Group with the China International Electronic Commerce Center (中国国际电子商务中心), was run by a virtual AI host paired with real-time multilingual translation for simultaneous Chinese–English delivery. In phase three Beifa Group (贝发集团), a stationery exporter, received buyers in several languages through a 55-inch AI digital human screen. The same phase opened the fair’s first Smart Healthcare Zone (智慧医疗专区), where Shandong Digihuman Technology showed its High-Definition Digital Human Virtual Anatomy Table System V2.0 (高清数字人虚拟解剖台系统V2.0), which had won a gold award in the 2025 Canton Fair Design Innovation Award (广交会设计创新奖, the CF Award). During the same session Xiangqu Travel (想趣旅行), part of Gaoyun Wenlü (高云文旅), supported the “Time-Honoured Brands at the Canton Fair” (老字号走进广交会) programme with an AI digital human giving visitors real-time multilingual information about the heritage brands.

Before the 139th session, Chen Zhilie (陈志列), chairman of the Guangdong Federation of Industry and Commerce (广东省工商联), announced in March 2026 that Guangdong exhibitors at the spring fair would use screens that recognise an overseas buyer’s country and language and, within 0.5 seconds, produce a digital human interpreter dressed like the buyer and speaking their language. During the session itself (15 April to 5 May 2026), Guangxi Guancheng Electronics (广西冠成电子) showed AI digital human interactive all-in-one screens in phase one, drawing buyers from the United Arab Emirates, India, the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia, and iFlytek (科大讯飞) included its iFlytek Zhizuo (讯飞智作) AI digital human audio and video creation platform in its product line-up. In phase two, the third “Time-Honoured Brands at the Canton Fair” event, a Ministry of Commerce Time-Honoured Brands Carnival (老字号嘉年华) project guided by the Guangdong Department of Commerce, brought 26 heritage brands from 21 Guangdong cities and launched the Guangdong Time-Honoured Brands AI Encyclopedia Digital Human (广东老字号AI百科数字人). Developed by Xiangqu Travel with the University of Hong Kong and trained on official brand data, it answered visitors’ questions about brand histories and products. In phase three, Shandong Digihuman Technology returned to the Smart Healthcare Zone and reported more than 500 visiting clients.

At the 140th session (15 October to 4 November 2026), the Xiaolv Tongxue AI (小律同学) legal and government-services model in digital-human form, launched by Guangdong Nanfang Furuide Law Firm (广东南方福瑞德律师事务所) and brought in by the Guangzhou Lawyers Association (广州市律师协会), was stationed at the Justice Bureau’s legal consultation service port in the halls. Working alongside the city’s duty lawyers for the full session, it answered domestic and foreign traders in more than 20 languages. Reports described this as the first time an intelligent digital human provided legal services at a national-level trade fair. In phase two it was joined by a new Xiaolv Tongxue intelligent mediation digital human (智能调解数字人), which explained routes for resolving contract, quality and payment disputes. During the same session the Guangzhou Lawyers Association published digital human videos on foreign-related law, and the Guangzhou Notaries Association (广州市公证协会) produced three AI digital human legal-education videos on trade secrets, cross-border intellectual property and notarisation for companies going abroad.