CIFTIS 2026 in Beijing showcases robots, designer toys and immersive technologies, showing how new tech is entering everyday life and global markets.
The 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) opened in Beijing on Sept. 9th. It brought together a range of new products, from robot applications to designer toys with global ambitions. The exhibits showed how advanced technologies are moving beyond industrial settings and into everyday life. Visitors can now interact with, use and experience them.
Robots Bring Tech Into Everyday Services
At the Culture and Tourism Services Thematic Exhibition, the Beijing Cultural Heritage and Museum Exhibition Area recreated the old Liulichang curio trading scene. Two robots acted as a shopkeeper and shop assistant, introducing cultural relics and artworks to visitors and exhibitors, according to CNS.
Bi Jianyu, director of the Cultural Relics Market Management Division at the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau, said the robots can introduce more than 100 cultural relics and artworks in detail, as well as tell the history of Beijing’s Liulichang.
Sales of cultural relics and artworks often depend on buyers’ understanding of their value. Sales staff can also face limitations when introducing them. Bi said robots can be trained to tell the stories behind cultural relics and artworks, helping visitors better understand their cultural value.
At the Telecommunications, Computer and Information Services Exhibition, an Unmanned Post Office offered another example of robots handling everyday tasks. Visitors wrote greetings and postal addresses on postcards before placing them at a designated location. A wheeled dual-arm robot then used visual recognition to pick up each postcard, stamp it and place it in the correct postbox.
Wu Hainan of Jingchen Digital Intelligence (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. said the robot combines autonomous navigation, vision-guided grasping and force-controlled operation. It is designed for postal services and cultural-creative retail scenarios. The robot can handle frequent, standardised tasks in these settings.
Designer Toys Give Heritage a New Form
CIFTIS also provides a platform for Chinese products to reach international markets. HERE, known as Qimeng Island in China, launched its latest co-branded products, incorporating Beijing silk figurines, pankou and ceramics into designer toy designs.
The products give intangible cultural heritage a more contemporary and collectable form. Compared with traditional handicrafts, designer toys are smaller and more affordable, offering another way to express and promote Chinese culture.
Zhai Xiaoqian, the company’s PR manager, said HERE’s products are now exported to 27 countries and regions. In May this year, the company signed a strategic co-operation agreement with Chu Kong Shipping Enterprises (Group) Company Limited to develop a new cruise route in Victoria Harbour. The company says it will be the world’s first immersive designer-toy IP-themed route.
Immersive Tech Lets Visitors Experience the Action
CIFTIS also offers visitors opportunities to experience technologies firsthand. At the Beijing Yizhuang Exhibition Area within the Culture and Tourism Services Thematic Exhibition, visitors could try a racing simulator.
“This simulator recreates the experience very realistically. It feels very immersive,” said Nahom Berhanu Wendaferew, who works at the Ethiopian Embassy in China, after experiencing rally racing in the simulator’s cockpit.
Song Yanqiang of Nuxiong Racing Simulator said the simulator has six degrees of freedom, covering up and down, left and right, and front and back movement. It can automatically adjust racing parameters. It can also simulate acceleration push-back, skidding, road bumps and airborne weightlessness.
The system also has three independent screens that simulate rear-view mirror vision and can support professional training for racing drivers.
Nahom said Chinese new energy vehicles are popular in Ethiopia and can be seen widely in Addis Ababa, the capital. He also noted that Ethiopia has opened multiple areas of co-operation with China, including AI, and welcomes Chinese investment.
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