INSIGHT
Focusing on the frontier of China-Africa digital cooperation, we publish authoritative research and blue books to reveal trends, share practice, and lead cooperation.
Reviews intelligent connected vehicles and IoV development, covering global trends, application scenarios, technology evolution and vehicle-road-cloud integration.
Smart Manufacturing
Reviews next-generation intelligent terminals, covering policy, technology, commercial adoption, ecosystem, chips, storage, interaction, connectivity and security.
Smart Manufacturing
Analyzes how AI empowers SMEs, focusing on technologies, adoption models, application scenarios and pathways for scalable deployment.
Artificial Intelligence
Tracks global digital governance trends, international mechanisms, key issues, digital rules and cooperation dynamics.
Digital Governance
Studies AI-enabled medical equipment, including industry trends, regulation, key technologies and application scenarios.
Artificial Intelligence
Evaluates advanced computing and computing power development, including technologies, industrial trends and regional capacity levels.
Computing Power
2026 marks the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Africa. Over seven decades the relationship has achieved comprehensive, leapfrog development, and China-Africa cooperation has become a model for China's collaboration with the Global South. Economic and trade cooperation is a key pillar. Since the founding of FOCAC in 2000, cooperation has continually expanded and yielded rich results, serving as ballast for the relationship and a lever for building an all-weather community with a shared future.
Cheng Zhigang, executive chair and secretary-general of the forum, said China-Africa cooperation made notable progress across many fields in 2025, with rising demand for used vehicles, machinery, building materials, emergency equipment, and medical devices. Mechanical and electrical products became the mainstay of exports, at 55% of the total. In the first eleven months trade surpassed USD 300 billion for the first time, and Cheng expects 15-20% growth in 2026, reaching USD 350 billion.
On May 1, 2026, China implemented full zero-tariff treatment for 53 African countries with diplomatic ties, following the treatment extended on December 1, 2024 to all least-developed partner countries. China thus became the first major economy to grant unilateral, full-coverage zero-tariff treatment to all African partner countries and all least-developed partner countries. In the first month, policy dividends were released faster and customs efficiency kept improving, injecting new momentum into high-quality cooperation.
Artificial intelligence is a key force driving the technological revolution, and Africa's need to seize AI opportunities is increasingly urgent. As a technological foundation, China's open-source large models greatly improve language and knowledge understanding and support chat, writing, programming, image recognition, and reasoning. Their open, inclusive, low-cost, and adaptable strengths are being deployed across Africa's infrastructure, industry, and livelihoods, writing a new chapter in South-South technology cooperation.
2026 marks the 70th anniversary of China-Africa diplomatic ties, the Year of China-Africa People-to-People Exchanges, and the opening year of China's 15th Five-Year Plan. As a traditional market, Africa shows vast new potential amid fresh opportunities and historic openings for deep cooperation. China has been Africa's largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years. In 2025 trade with Africa surpassed USD 300 billion, reaching USD 340.05 billion, with an average annual growth rate of 14.9%.
After weathering the pandemic, debt pressure, and a global inflation cycle, Africa's economy had just shown signs of recovery when it faced fresh external risks. The African Development Bank's 2026 African Economic Outlook, released in late May, notes that escalating Middle East tensions and shipping disruptions near the Strait of Hormuz are transmitting risks through energy prices, trade logistics, financial markets, and food supply, dragging on growth and testing its resilience.
