China Supply Chain Expo Set To Welcome More US Firms in June, Launch AI Section

More major US companies are set to join Beijing’s premier supply chain expo this summer, including its first artificial intelligence (AI) section, as business ties between the two superpowers enter a state of fragile stabilisation.

A fresh wave of leading United States enterprises, alongside prominent figures from American academia and politics, will attend the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing in June, its organiser, the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said at a news conference in Beijing on Saturday.

The uptick in corporate interest comes at a delicate time for bilateral relations. Despite over a year of heightened trade tensions, Beijing and Washington are maintaining a steady rhythm of engagement, highlighted by a planned sixth round of high-level economic and trade consultations – the fifth was held in Malaysia in October – and US President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to China next month.

“The business communities of China and the United States have long been close partners, a relationship built on mutual benefit and win-win cooperation,” council spokeswoman Wang Wenshuai said, calling them “the bridge and bond for exchanges and cooperation between the two nations”.

According to a Xinhua readout of a telephone conversation between President Xi Jinping and Trump early last month, this is expected to be a pivotal year for the two countries to move towards a stage of “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation”.

This year’s supply chain expo will feature an AI exhibition area for the first time. It will showcase a comprehensive ecosystemranging from data and computational power to terminal applications – and Wang said American AI firms would be among the key exhibitors.

Launched in 2023, the annual expo is designed to facilitate cross-border cooperation and support global industrial networks.

Despite the trade tensions between China and the US, the council said last year’s expo saw a 15 per cent year-on-year increase in American exhibitors, who continued to represent the largest contingent of foreign participants.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was a high-profile attendee last year as the US chip giant made its expo debut. That expo featured exhibitors from 75 countries, regions and international organisations, with overseas exhibitors accounting for 35 per cent of the total.

Beyond the expo, Wang said the council had been working to deepen bilateral cooperation in emerging sectors, including the digital economy, biomedicine and new energy vehicles.

It also pledged to organise more events to facilitate dialogue between the two sides and support US enterprises operating in China.

 The council had so far approved 119 projects that would see Chinese enterprises participate in exhibitions in the US this year, Wang said, with 30 of them completed by last month.

“We will organise Chinese business delegations to visit the US at appropriate times,” she said, adding that the move was intended to promote regional-level economic ties and foster deeper business engagement.

Despite the temporary detente in bilateral economic and trade relations, the US remained the primary source of friction in economic and trade matters involving China, according to the council’s global economic and trade friction index for December, which was released on Saturday.