Standing at the starting point of 2026, looking forward to the global development of artificial intelligence (AI), multiple variables such as technology, industry, energy, and governance are intertwined, which will jointly shape this critical year. Related institutions predict that more and more top AI companies will focus on improving their ability to reason with large models and execute tasks with intelligent agents, promoting the evolution of AI from "generation" to "planning and action". A large number of enterprise applications will be embedded in task-based AI agents. Accompanying technological breakthroughs is energy pressure, and global data center power consumption will continue to be high. At the governance level, it is expected that governance measures in various countries will accelerate their implementation. Technology: The big model competition drives the application of intelligent agents. By 2026, the competitive trend of artificial intelligence big models chasing each other will continue. OpenAI, Google, Deep Search, and other companies will release the latest versions of large-scale or more efficient models. Renowned artificial intelligence researcher and Stanford University professor Li Feifei recently wrote that space intelligence is the next frontier of artificial intelligence. On the basis of successfully processing text data and multimodal data, big models are making progress in spatial understanding, with the goal of models that possess semantic, physical, geometric, dynamic and complex interaction capabilities. At the same time, intelligent agents may become increasingly popular, and artificial intelligence will be more closely integrated with people's lives. The traditional working mode of AI systems is question and answer, while intelligent agents with deep goal orientation, more step planning capabilities, and expertise in specific tasks will be increasingly applied in various jobs. Gartner Consulting predicts that by 2026, 40% of enterprise applications will be embedded with task-based AI agents, while this proportion will be less than 5% by 2025. Some intelligent agents are capable of automatically clicking buttons, filling out forms, and switching between different software. For example, Microsoft Office smartphones can automatically create spreadsheets and documents after conversing with operators, and quickly create presentations. This means that AI is no longer just an auxiliary tool, but has to some extent acquired digital employee attributes. Hu Yanping, a specially appointed professor at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said in an interview with reporters that the shallow value of AI for enterprises is to reduce costs and improve efficiency, while the deep value is to drive paradigm shift through the burst of capabilities. Three changes are happening: in terms of cost structure, intelligent agent systems not only break through the limitations of traditional labor in terms of time and space, management cost efficiency, but also break through the bottleneck of creativity output capacity; In terms of organizational form, enterprises can use AI to provide dynamic perception, real-time interaction, intelligent creation, behavior achievement, organizational collaboration and other capabilities, thus evolving into the era of intelligent economy and human intelligence collaboration; In terms of competitive logic, there has been a shift from standardized scale to the integration of scale and individuality, from industrial division of labor and collaboration to ecological connectivity and collaboration, and from traditional factor competition to intelligent centralized capability factor competition. Industry: "Intelligent Manufacturing" is ushering in an opportunity period. In the industry, the combination of digital twins and AI intelligent agents is reshaping the product design process, and "Intelligent Manufacturing" is ushering in a strategic opportunity period. International Data Corporation predicts that by 2026, 40% of manufacturers equipped with production scheduling systems will upgrade to AI driven production scheduling, achieving autonomous operation of production resource management; By 2028, 65% of the top 1000 manufacturing companies worldwide will integrate intelligent agents with design and simulation tools for continuous verification of design changes and configuration solutions. Ramin Hasani, co-founder and CEO of Liquid Artificial Intelligence in the United States, believes that this year will be the year of "active agents". He said that currently most AI assistants are "reactive agents," but when AI runs quickly on devices and is always online, it can actively work for humans, and tasks can be completed in the background. Experts predict that this trend may be significantly reflected in China's manufacturing industry. The factory production plan will be optimized in real-time by AI agents based on changes in orders, equipment status, and supply chain fluctuations. Hu Yanping believes that for China's manufacturing industry, the wave of industrial intelligence presents more opportunities than challenges. The transition from manufacturing to "smart manufacturing" will greatly enhance the market perception, product innovation, and international competitiveness of Chinese enterprises, and also mean that modern industrial clusters based on emerging and future industries empowered, driven, and catalyzed by AI will gradually emerge. China's intelligent manufacturing is expected to drive the Chinese economy towards the next long-term development cycle. Energy: Data center power consumption continues to rise by 2026, and the energy pressure brought by large-scale AI applications will continue to increase, leading to an increased demand for green energy transformation. The report released by the International Energy Agency in April 2025 states that by 2030, the electricity demand for global data centers is expected to more than double, reaching approximately 945 terawatt hours, and artificial intelligence will be the main driving force behind this surge in electricity consumption. During his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Su Zifeng, CEO of AMD Semiconductor, stated that the global active AI users have now exceeded 1 billion and are expected to exceed 5 billion in the future. The current computing power is far from sufficient to support the vision of ubiquitous AI, and to achieve this, global computing power must be increased by 100 times in the next few years. Driven by factors such as the continuous increase in AI computing power load, increasingly strict energy efficiency regulations, and the rapid implementation of low-carbon digital infrastructure, the global green AI data center market will experience strong expansion. According to a report by Canadian Priority Research, the global green AI data center market is expected to reach $67.6 billion by 2026 and may grow to approximately $123 billion by 2035. Industry insiders believe that China's efforts to strengthen its industrial foundation through supply capacity, layout optimization, and green and low-carbon development will provide sustainable resources and engineering system support for AI development. Liu Wei, director of the Human Computer Interaction and Cognitive Engineering Laboratory at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said that promoting AI infrastructure construction under the constraints of the "dual carbon" target requires accelerating the research and development of high-efficiency chips and ensuring stable supply of new energy electricity; On the other hand, there is an urgent need to break through the large-scale application of new generation cooling technology and the level of intelligent energy management. China will continue to explore sustainable paths for the coordinated development of computing power and green development. Governance: The supply of AI systems is accelerating, and 2026 is also seen as a crucial year for the accelerated implementation of global AI governance measures. The focus of attention in related industries may shift from conceptual debates to compliance capabilities, industry adaptation, and cross-border collaboration. The Artificial Intelligence Act passed by the European Union in 2024 is the world's first comprehensive law to regulate AI. The relevant rules will be implemented in stages, and most of the rules will come into effect in August 2026. The US federal government will require unified regulatory rules for the field of artificial intelligence at the federal level in December 2025, and it is expected that more corresponding measures will be introduced in 2026. In China, the path of AI governance is becoming increasingly clear. The "Opinions on Deepening the Implementation of the 'Artificial Intelligence+' Action" issued by the State Council in August 2025 not only promotes the extensive and deep integration of artificial intelligence with various industries and fields of the economy and society, but also points out the need to improve laws, regulations, ethical standards, and other related legislation for the healthy development of artificial intelligence. The international community's attention to China's AI development path has also shifted from "scale expansion" to "institutional supply and governance practices". The World Economic Forum website published an article stating that China's long-term development strategy for AI is supported by an adaptive regulatory system and solid infrastructure, setting an example for the world and demonstrating how to strike a balance between innovation and security. The editorial of the British journal Nature states that 'China is leading global AI governance' and calls on other countries to participate in addressing the common challenges brought by AI development. Looking ahead to 2026, the global development of AI will not only be about competing for which model is stronger, but also about who can integrate safety, compliance, energy consumption, and industry landing into a system, and form higher rule compatibility and mutual recognition capabilities in international cooperation. (New Society)