2026 Main Conference Agenda

Chinese enterprises going global have evolved from mere product exports to systematic, ecosystem-based expansion. In the era of the digital economy, how can cross-border capital flows become more efficient, more compliant, and more RMB-denominated? 中企出海从"产品出海"走向"体系出海"，数字经济时代下的跨境资金流，如何更高效、更合规、更人民币化？

Ten years ago, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) established partnerships and signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Cyberport, the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), and Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (STP) respectively, laying the foundation for a transformative collaboration to supercharge the city’s fintech ecosystem. This panel underscores the power of collaboration by highlighting their decade-long achievements in talent development, ecosystem funding, joint researches, data innovation, etc., while looking ahead to deeper partnerships in emerging areas such as tokenisation, digital assets, quantum computing and AI.

HKEX and HKMA have launched a joint pilot to explore a new digital payment solution for After-Hours Trading (AHT) in the derivatives market, aiming to strengthen Hong Kong’s capital markets and meet rising demand for AHT. The panel will discuss how e-HKD—a wholesale CBDC operating 24/7—can enhance risk management in derivatives trading beyond regular banking hours.

This session focuses on the practical integration of sophisticated AI systems within the modern enterprise. We examine the evolution of model reliability, the ethical considerations of large-scale automation, and the strategies leaders use to foster effective collaboration between human teams and machine intelligence in an increasingly complex digital landscape.

The biggest bottleneck for the AI boom isn't silicon anymore, it's reliable, 24/7 electricity. This session breaks down how private capital is stepping in to power massive data centers, exploring why the smartest money is backing Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and next-gen energy storage as commercial necessities for the AI age.

Global finance faces a ticking clock that hackers are hoarding encrypted data today to crack it with tomorrow’s quantum computers. This session breaks down the commercial race to 'post-quantum' cryptography, highlighting the startups and tech giants positioned to protect the industry during this once-in-a-generation infrastructure migration.

As real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation gains momentum, legal structuring is becoming critical to turning innovation into viable, investable products. This panel will explore the key legal considerations in moving from the underlying asset to the tokenised offering, including ownership rights, issuance structures, investor protections, regulatory treatment and cross-border challenges. Speakers will discuss how robust legal design can support trust, scalability and broader market adoption.

Wealth management is shifting from static portfolios and periodic check-ins to continuous, AI-driven advice delivered at scale. This session explores what that shift actually means for clients and institutions, how much of the relationship can move to AI without losing trust, and what it takes for banks to deliver personalisation and value at a level clients now expect.

As innovative companies scale from breakthrough technologies to global businesses, the challenge extends beyond raising capital to building the right conditions for long-term success. This session explores the interplay between capital markets, innovators and investors in supporting growth, and how a strong ecosystem can help emerging companies scale, attract investment and realise their ambitions.

GreenTech now works both ends of the emissions problem: tools that price climate risk and verify green bonds, and infrastructure that cuts emissions in how capital moves, tokenised settlement replacing multi-day clearing. Financial institutions are building and buying into both, and the harder question is: what still doesn't work?

This panel looks at the development of digital assets across Asia through a regulatory lens, covering how frameworks are taking shape and what it means for the region's markets.

The era of fragmented, unprofitable "smart city" pilots has given way to a high-stakes race to build an AI-powered central nervous system of the municipal infrastructure. As megacities mandate real-time algorithmic integration to survive climate shocks and grid constraints, this session explores the highly lucrative tech stack that actively optimises urban energy, mobility, and physical assets to run the concrete jungles of the future.

This panel takes a look at how AI integration is reshaping core financial systems, optimising institutional operations, and unlocking new pathways for sustainable economic growth.

As AI and financial infrastructure converge, Agentic Finance is opening new possibilities for how financial services are delivered, coordinated, and scaled. Bringing together perspectives from on-chain infrastructure, institutional investment, and banking innovation, this panel will explore the foundations shaping the next generation of intelligent financial systems — from trust and interoperability to data, security, and institutional readiness. Speakers will discuss emerging applications of AI-driven financial agents and what it will take to move Agentic Finance from experimentation to meaningful, scalable adoption.

Autonomous driving is no longer a car manufacturing race; it is a brutal battle for the "AI Compute Stack": algorithms, specialised silicon, and the integration layer that fuses them. This session dissects the ‘profit margins’ of these three critical layers across the autonomous value chain, identifying where the real alpha lies among the software giants, the custom chip designers, or the ecosystem orchestrators.

As the aviation sector works towards its net-zero goals, Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) is maturing from a laboratory innovation into a global export commodity. This session explores the commercial roadmaps and economic frameworks required to scale production effectively. Industry experts will discuss pathways to optimising supply chains, managing production costs, and unlocking the capital needed to build robust, high-volume infrastructure worldwide.

The equity market is entering a new era as traditional stocks move onto blockchain rails. This session explores how tokenisation could reshape trading, settlement and access to global equities, and what it means for the future of capital markets.

An AI agent doesn't just analyse anymore, it acts. That raises the stakes on a question institutions haven't fully answered: can the reasoning be traced back to verified data, and can the partners supplying that data and reasoning be trusted to keep the two separate? As institutions increasingly plug in outside partners rather than build in-house, this session unpacks what that separation needs to look like, how to vet a partner against it, and what compliance, risk and legal require before sign-off.

2026 is being called the "Year of AI Agents." AI is evolving from a "Q&A assistant" into a "digital employee" capable of independent decision-making, penetrating core financial workflows. This panel brings together a policy advocate, an academic, an international consultant, and a practitioner to discuss implementation, profitability, and boundaries: At what stage is AI's scaled implementation in finance? How far is it from true profitability? When AI makes decisions, who is accountable for its mistakes? And what role does Hong Kong play in this transformation? 2026年被称为“AI Agent元年”，AI正从“问答助手”进化为能独立决策的“数字员工”，深入金融核心业务流。本论坛汇聚政策推动者丶学者丶国际咨询顾问与从业者，围绕“落地—增效—边界”展开讨论：AI规模化落地到了什么阶段？距离真正盈利还有多远？当AI做决策，谁为它的错误负责？香港在这场变革中扮演什么角色？

Crypto capital is becoming more selective. Deal count has fallen to multi-year lows, yet capital continues to flow into fewer, larger, higher-conviction rounds. This panel explores what makes a crypto startup fundable today, which sectors still attract serious capital, and how founders can stand out in a market where average ideas no longer get funded.

The structural foundations of global markets are shifting towards new execution venues and synchronised liquidity pools. This panel explores the convergence of traditional and on-chain trading environments through AI-driven execution models and tokenised market access, analysing how machine learning optimisations and regulated digital-asset structures maximise capital efficiency and provide professional participants with resilient, intelligent, 24/7 market access.

Reaching the next wave of customers now runs through digital platforms, and increasingly through AI embedded in how those platforms are built and run, from onboarding and underwriting to personalisation at scale. This session explores what it actually takes to grow coverage in the years ahead: where AI moves the needle, where the hard problems still sit outside the algorithm, and what "reach" will mean for financial services' next chapter.

What happens when machines compete for liquidity, capital and information? What will happen to global compute resources and infrastructures? This session discusses the foundational developments happening across critical industries: finance, AI, and Web3, and its underlying impacts to builders, infrastructure providers, and users in the next decade.

The era of vague sustainability pledges has been crushed by a ruthless global consolidation, driven by 2026 environmental tariffs and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) mandates. This session reveals how the sharpest institutional funds are using digital carbon passports and emerging traceability software to spot supply chain resilience, and decode how to turn this hard transparency data into defensible portfolio alpha.

As physical AI moves past raw technical milestones, building an enduring industry demands more than hardware breakthroughs. This session examines the forces shaping the sector's next chapter: aligning capital strategy with market trust, sustaining long-term value, and defining what true industry maturity looks like.

Space is no longer just a scientific frontier, it's becoming an asset class family offices are starting to underwrite. Bringing together the builders shaping the commercial space ecosystem and the capital allocators deciding where to place long-term bets, the conversation explores how private wealth is approaching space ventures, what it takes to earn family office trust, and how emerging hubs could connect global space ambition to global capital.

As AI agents move from providing advice to executing transactions, the definition of a "customer" is fundamentally changing. This panel explores the shift toward agentic commerce, where autonomous systems handle end-to-end purchasing on behalf of consumers. We discuss the infrastructure required to verify agent intent and manage delegated authority, ensuring that machine-initiated payments remain secure, authenticated, and verifiable in a 24/7 retail environment.

Building next-generation green infrastructure is often too expensive and risky for private venture capital to tackle alone. This session brings together project developers, financial institutions and impact investors to look at what it takes to structure and fund a green infrastructure project across Asia, using new financing tools and technology to prove a project's impact, not just price its risk. It examines the partnerships that make a project bankable in the first place and keep it that way long after it's built.

Integrating AI agents with onchain financial infrastructure is accelerating the rise of autonomous, machine-native commerce. However, scaling an onchain AI economy requires solving key bottlenecks in identity, security, multi-chain settlement, and legacy rail compatibility. This panel explores the industry's strategic direction, challenges, and future trajectory.

How does a space-tech company actually get funded? From early-stage bets on ambitious founders to the financial infrastructure now underpinning the sector, capital is reshaping what's possible beyond Earth's orbit. Investors and builders unpack what it actually takes to raise capital, price risk, and turn bold ideas into fundable, investable businesses, demystifying a global industry that is still writing its own rulebook.

As AI continues to penetrate the core of global industrial chains, China’s integration of AI and industry has entered a critical phase of accelerated implementation and iterative innovation. This session will focus on the tangible progress achieved in 2026, exploring how AI has redefined industrial productivity. Looking ahead to 2027, how will enterprises further deepen AI integration to address pain points in industrial upgrading?

Bringing together the leaders of high-growth fintech unicorns, this session explores the complexities of scaling financial technology on a global stage. We discuss the strategies for navigating diverse regulatory environments, maintaining an innovation-led culture at scale, and the vision required to transform a successful startup into a dominant global financial brand.

Every impact investor says they want to fund high-impact ventures at scale, but what actually earns a deal a green light, and what quietly kills it, rarely gets said out loud. This session talks through the real decision-making behind impact capital: what moves investors, including family offices, from ESG interest to actual deployment, how to tell genuine impact from impact-washing, and what it takes to mobilise more capital, faster, across sectors.

From limited-edition toys to rare cards and digital assets, collectibles are becoming signals of taste, status, and belonging. This session explores how Web3 can power verified ownership, community access, resale markets, and deeper fan participation in the next wave of consumer IP.

Humanoid robots have shifted from viral demos to a fierce global race for mass production, with companies like XPeng and Tesla targeting full-scale manufacturing by year-end. The core breakthrough is "Physical AI" and spatial world models, allowing machines to perceive, reason, and act in the physical world. This session analyses the real-world unit economics, explores the "scale-up trap" that will separate market leaders from also-rans.

High-speed interoperability has turned global retail transfers and payments into a near-instant utility. This session explores the technical orchestration required to synchronize digital wallets and domestic rails for seamless P2P and consumer transactions. We discuss the move toward high-velocity liquidity that allows users to move and spend value across the globe with total transparency and zero lag.

Every growth story gets softened in the retelling, the near-death moments smoothed into strategy, the lucky breaks made to look inevitable. This conversation goes under the hood of two technology businesses, straight to what actually almost broke them, the numbers that didn't work, the model that had to change, and whether what got them here still holds up for what's next.

Accelerating the green transition requires aligning capital, technology, and implementation across the real economy. This session explores emerging trends across sustainable investing, supply chain ESG compliance, and inclusive finance. Industry leaders will discuss how innovative platforms and financing strategies are driving measurable sustainability and long-term impact across global markets.

As capital markets shift from pilot programs to full-scale enterprise blockchain adoption, bridging legacy financial infrastructure with decentralized ledgers has become a core challenge. This panel delves into the architectural mechanisms de-risking the enterprise tokenization ecosystem—from the enterprise mathematical trust model and compounding custody complexity at scale, to the balance of decentralized oracles and the operational realities of managing hybrid architectures that span both permissioned and permissionless environments.

While cutting-edge R&D has filled workshops with impressive proof-of-concepts, the sector currently faces a "bottleneck of scale"—struggling with application scenarios and the complexity of hardware-software integration. This panel explores how to bridge the gap between innovation, industrialization and future transformation.

Tokenized interoperability is being tested under real market conditions. True development requires infrastructure-level solutions that connect new digital environments with legacy market systems. This session addresses pragmatic aspects beyond issuance totals: staus-quo and future of operational credibility, collateral utility, industry liquidity frameworks, and coherent legal and regulatory architecture.

Cleantech has never had more capital chasing it, but pilots don't scale themselves. Between a lab breakthrough and a commercial deployment sits a graveyard of promising technology that couldn't handle real-world costs, permitting or engineering constraints. This session gets specific about what actually closes that gap: the operational discipline, project financing structures and industrial partnerships that turn a working prototype into infrastructure someone will actually build and run at scale.

Advanced data integration is shifting SME finance from static credit checks to dynamic, real-time lending. This session explores how automated risk modeling and integrated trade platforms are streamlining capital access for smaller enterprises. We discuss how financial institutions are leveraging these tech stacks to provide flexible, high-velocity liquidity that keeps pace with the demands of modern global commerce.

Every drug modality speaks a different language, small molecules, peptides and biologics each demand their own data, models and validation, and no single AI approach covers all three. This panel will discuss how AI is adapting across that range, from generative chemistry to peptide design to fully autonomous biologics R&D, and how far it now reaches beyond generating candidates into planning experiments and running discovery on its own.

Chinese businesses are expanding overseas at record pace. This panel looks at the infrastructure making that growth possible: payment rails that move money across borders in real time, financing that frees up working capital tied to receivables, and the market access and partnerships that turn ambition into a real presence abroad.

Consumer credit has long relied on static scores that leave many creditworthy customers underserved. This session explores how institutions are rethinking the full credit journey, from who gets approved to the rewards and experience they receive, using new tools and data to make lending more personal, accessible and valuable at every stage.

As digital assets transition from retail speculation to institutional adoption, financial institutions require seamless integration across public rails, deep market liquidity, compliant stablecoins, and friction-free payment off-ramps. This session brings together key leaders across the tech stack to map out the future of institutional Web3 architecture.

With China approving the first commercial BCI for paralysis and hundreds of millions pouring into emerging innovators, brain-computer interfaces have started to ship commercial products. Tech giants are already in the race to dominate a hardware market to hit $40 billion by 2035. This session discusses the hard capital flows, revealing which FDA and CE-mark approvals unlock the lucrative medical-to-consumer pipeline and where investors are placing their bets today.