The 2026 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit opens on Nov. 2, drawing technology leaders, researchers and companies to the historic water town as firms based in Tongxiang expand AI applications from commercial cleaning and autonomous delivery to industrial control and data-center cooling, Media OutReach Newswire reported.
For Tongxiang, long associated with the annual internet conference, the summit is also a chance to demonstrate how local companies are commercializing AI technologies for customers at home and abroad. Ahead of the event, reporters visited seven Tongxiang-based companies working in robotics, intelligent vehicles, synthetic data, industrial automation, logistics and computing infrastructure.
The international reach of these firms is already tangible. Singapore Changi Airport earlier this year placed a fourth order for commercial cleaning robots from CenoBots, a Tongxiang-based company whose machines are used in airports, supermarkets, hospitals, factories and warehouses. CenoBots has sold products in more than 40 countries and regions, with customers including Changi Airport, British retailer Tesco, the University of Minnesota and pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. This year, the company supplied about 600 autonomous cleaning robots for Tesco Express stores across the United Kingdom.
"Cleaning robots are appearing in more and more settings," said Shen Jizhong, CenoBots' co-founder and vice president. "It is much like electric vehicles becoming a familiar sight on the roads — a trend that is gathering pace." The company has expanded its research, development and production facilities in Tongxiang from approximately 3,000 square meters in its early years to more than 20,000 square meters.
While CenoBots focuses on service robots, TEEMO is developing the vehicle platforms that support autonomous mobility, making drive-by-wire skateboard chassis and core components for autonomous vehicles used in last-mile delivery, patrols and logistics. One of TEEMO's strategic customers, autonomous delivery-vehicle maker Zelos, was selected for all lots in China Post's centralized procurement program for 7,000 autonomous delivery vehicles. TEEMO's customers already span the United States, the Middle East, India and Russia.
Other Tongxiang companies are concentrating on the data and perception systems that allow machines to function in physical environments. Dayan Technology, founded in Tongxiang in May 2025, provides synthetic-data and toolchain services for autonomous-driving and humanoid-robotics companies, combining real-world data collection, digital twins and simulated training environments. Freetech develops intelligent-driving systems and 4D imaging radar for passenger and commercial vehicles, and said its technology has been selected for hundreds of vehicle programs. At its Wuzhen manufacturing base, an in-house AI system that reads customer orders and calculates needed components has increased overall efficiency by more than 20%, the company said.
Beyond mobility, Shuhan Technologies provides on-premises industrial AI for chemical plants, energy facilities and wastewater-treatment systems. At a coal chemical plant with annual capacity of 1.2 million metric tons, Shuhan said its system reduced raw-material consumption by 6%, generating more than 176 million yuan, or about $26 million, in annualized economic benefits and cutting carbon emissions by more than 500,000 metric tons. SENAD targets logistics bottlenecks with autonomous loading and unloading robots and a multimodal logistics model called Robot Insight.
Tongxiang's AI sector also includes companies addressing the infrastructure needed to run increasingly powerful computing systems. SynthCool develops two-phase liquid-cooling systems to address the heat generated by increasingly powerful processors. "Heat dissipation is infrastructure," said Zhu Zhijiang, SynthCool's general manager. According to the company, its technology supports heat dissipation of more than 3,000 watts per chip and heat flux above 250 watts per square centimeter.
The breadth of these businesses matters beyond Tongxiang. As AI adoption accelerates globally, the summit offers a test case for whether midsized industrial clusters can convert research into exportable products — from airport cleaning fleets to cooling systems for AI data centers — and capture demand in markets where labor shortages and computing constraints are acute.
