The sub-forum themed “Reconstructing the Game Industry Ecosystem through AI Technology” of the 2026 China International Game Developers Conference (CIGDC) was held at Shanghai’s North Bund. Hosted by the Game Publishing Committee of the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, the event assembled leading gaming enterprises including Tencent, NetEase, POK Technology and FunPlus, as well as cutting-edge tech firms such as VAST and Xiantao Tech. Participants conducted in-depth discussions on core topics covering AIGC content generation, intelligent NPC interaction, AI-assisted development and intelligent data analysis, injecting new impetus into AI-driven innovation across the gaming sector.
Zhang Yijun, First Vice Chairman of the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association and Chairman of the Game Publishing Committee, attended the event and delivered a speech. He noted that AI is empowering the gaming industry in an all-round manner, unleashing enormous potential in boosting creative efficiency, lowering technical thresholds and facilitating cross-cultural exchanges. He called on all industry participants to uphold responsible tech innovation, deepen civilizational mutual learning, strengthen collaborative innovation and prioritize talent cultivation, to advance the sustainable development of the global gaming industry.
During the keynote session, enterprise representatives shared industry insights from multiple dimensions, including technological practice, talent upgrading and ecosystem building.
Wang Chen, Vice President of POK Technology, pointed out that generative AI is revolutionizing game creation and fostering a new group of “playable content creators”. Empowered by AI, these creators transform creative inspirations, viewpoints and trending topics into playable and shareable mini-game prototypes, emerging as a vital new driving force reshaping the mini-game ecosystem.
Wang Fuli, Director of Human Resources at FunPlus, proposed a “double-helix talent model”. The model emphasizes integrating professional gaming expertise with broad AI technological capabilities to break traditional job boundary limitations, offering a new approach for talent training in the AI era for the gaming industry.
Hou Jie, AI algorithm expert and technical lead of the Fuxi Tiangong Art Platform at NetEase Fuxi AI Lab, shared practical AI application experience in art asset production based on multiple NetEase game projects. He stated that AI empowerment for game research and development has evolved from a supplementary tool for individual links to a new stage of systematic restructuring of the entire production workflow. By deeply integrating AI into the art asset pipeline, NetEase has achieved remarkable progress in improving the efficiency and quality of game content production.
Cai Minjian, Senior Engineer of Advanced Rendering at Tencent Games, presented Tencent’s technical layout and practical achievements in AI rendering. He elaborated on a three-in-one technical architecture consisting of supporting toolchains for game engines, dedicated AI inference engines for real-time rendering and AI rendering runtime pipelines. He further illustrated three commercially applied, user-centric technological breakthroughs: real-time cinematic lighting based on neural dynamic global illumination, high-fidelity neural spatial audio solutions for games, and neural asset compression technology that significantly reduces game package size. The technologies are now compatible with both PC and mobile platforms.
Lyu Huiwei, Senior Game AI Engineer at Tencent, shared the application of reinforcement learning in NPC combat scenarios based on the game Locke Kingdom. The team adopted hierarchical coding based on large language models and refined reward functions, enabling AI to understand game rules and conduct strategic gaming under incomplete information, with distinctive combat styles. The solution has been officially launched in the March 2026 game update.
Zhu Guozheng, Co-founder and Vice President of Metaverse Tech, shared how the company’s self-developed 3D AIGC tools empower industry partners and support native cloud game development. He explained how the tool series featuring “management, retrieval, generation and evaluation” boosts the construction of game assets and scenarios, offering practical pathways for 3D AIGC to reshape game production workflows.
Li Zonglin, Founder of Xiantao Tech, unveiled the world’s first AI agent-based game terminal at the forum. Centered on AI agent technology, the product restructures underlying operating systems and hardware architectures to enable in-depth player participation in game progression. The first-generation product is positioned as a portable handheld terminal natively powered by large AI models.
Huang Zixuan, CMO of VAST, introduced the company’s flagship 3D large models Tripo P1.0 and Tripo H3.1, as well as its world model project Project Eden. The project creatively decouples underlying state deduction from visual rendering, enabling long-term persistent environmental evolution, free scene re-use and multi-user concurrent interaction, laying a solid technical foundation for next-generation interactive content creation.
Guo Tengfang, Project Lead at the Shengqu Games Technology Center, analyzed the industry’s prevailing challenges including scattered AI development access, opaque cost accounting, fragmented tool systems and compliance risks. He stated that the technology center is transforming from a traditional logistical support role to an industrial enabler. Driven by an integrated unified computing power platform and enterprise AI workstation, the center streamlines the entire R&D workflow to deliver substantial efficiency gains for game development and operation.
Covering AI rendering, AIGC content production, reinforcement learning-powered NPCs and full-process R&D optimization, the forum comprehensively demonstrated the profound transformation of the global gaming industry driven by cutting-edge AI technologies.