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Opera (OPRA): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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As AI moves from software into the physical world, a new generation of companies is redefining how machines perceive, reason, and act. Humanoid robots equipped with embodied AI—which enables hardware to navigate autonomously and make decisions in real-world environments—has the potential to transform the manufacturing and services sectors. But how long is the journey from today’s impressive demos to deployment at scale? And what will that shift mean for labor markets, industrial competitiveness, and the economics of automation? Leaders at the forefront of humanoid robotics offer a window into the capabilities of the machines they are building, and the road ahead to commercial applications. 

Jianxin Pang, Vice President and Vice Dean of Research Center, UBTECH 
Bin Wan, Chief Operating Officer, KEENON Robotics 
Maoqing Yao, Co‑Founder and Co‑President, AGIBOT 
Derek Zhang, Executive Editor, Fortune China 

Intelligence in Motion: Embedded and Autonomous

Conferences

Robotaxis are no longer a distant promise. In China, they are becoming part of daily urban life. As of early 2026, over 50 Chinese cities allow self-driving cars on public roads for testing; at least 10 permit commercial operations. Autonomous driving developer Pony AI has targeted to put 3,500 robotaxis on the road by the end of the year. The company’s cofounder and CEO, James Peng, has built his company around a practical premise: autonomous vehicles cannot wait for purpose-built smart cities; they must learn to operate safely and reliably on the roads cities already have. As Pony AI expands its operations in China and internationally, Peng will discuss what widespread autonomous mobility could mean for passengers, professional drivers, and the design of cities themselves. A central question is whether AI will make today’s urban infrastructure work differently, or whether truly autonomous cities will eventually require us to rethink existing urban systems altogether. 

Dr. James Peng, Founder and CEO , Pony.ai 
Nicholas Gordon, Editor, Asia, Fortune 

Intelligence in Motion: Mobility and Urban Futures

Good morning everyone, and I wonder if we can have James up on screen. James, it's so great to have you here with today. I know you're very busy and so thank you for giving us this time today. You know, I, I wanna start this conversation with a confession and that confession is I absolutely hate driving. I hate driving a car. I hate dealing with traffic. I hate dealing with parking. So why don't you give us a timeline. Of how long we might be able to when we might be able to expect kind of robo taxis to be commercial, to be ubiquitous, to be widespread, kind of how long are we thinking before these robotaxis become more common. Hi, Nicholas. Hi, this is James. Uh, it's great to be here and uh There's a bit ico. So Uh, do I see a bit of echola? Uh, anyhow, the, uh, Uh, can, can we turn off the, uh, mic somewhere? I see, I, I hear the echo. But anyhow, let me just go, go ahead and start. So, uh, I mean, as you already described, there's already commercial usage of the robotaxi in, uh, certain cities. For example, in China, we have launched commercial robotaxi services in the four tier one cities in China, uh, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai, uh. And of course, our main focus for the next several years will be focusing on scaling and putting the vehicles to be ubiquitous, right? So, I think there there are several limiting factors. One is regulation, the other is the capital and the resource needed to manufacture the vehicles and put them into uh uh many different cities. And the third, of course, is building the customer consensus and the willingness to actually having the services. I think all those takes time, but what we have seen is that the flying wheel is already there. We have uh See, at least from our current operations, customers love them. Uh, we, on average, I think we have about 25 rides per vehicle per day. And, uh, so, so to answer your question, in short, I think it's a matter of, uh, getting more and more. Uh, vehicles manufactured and getting the regulation ready. I think the technology problem is pretty much already solved. So, so maybe, maybe look at another five years, you'll be able to see in, in most of the major cities. Around the world, you'll be able to have, uh, get, get you a regular, regular, uh, service, and you'll be able to hail in a robotaxi just like a normal taxi. And, and let's talk about some of those major cities in the world because I know you're, uh, you have this aggressive global expansion plan. You're in Zagreb, um, in Croatia. You have this new partnership with Uber for Europe and the Middle East. I think you also just expanded into South Korea. So how are you thinking about these, these global markets and what's your approach to, you know, entering a new city? Uh, when, when we considering, because our resources are limited, so when we considering a city to enter into, there are several factors we consider. One is It, it should be a city that relatively has a mature taxi service, right? It, it's the taxi fare is relatively high, so there will be potential demand. The second factor is on the regulatory front. The, uh, at least, even, even if there's no existing regulations to support robotaxi, there should be a pathway already exist, uh, to support it. And the third, of course, is have a strong local partnership. I think with all three factors to consider, that will be a candidate city that we will enter into. That's why we, we consider definitely currently Europe. Uh, Middle East, I think South Korea, Japan, uh, uh, Southeast Asia, that'll be our main focus for now. And you know, tell us more about these, about these partnerships. So when you're working with someone like Uber, what are you getting from them and what are your partners getting from you? Because think about it, it, even a regular taxi, let, let, let alone a robo taxi requires different partnerships, right? There's user acquisition, uh, Such as Uber. There's a vehicle manufacturer, and there's a driver. Besides that, there's also backend services, right, such as cleaning, servicing, charging, and all that. So you, you, you can think of Pony as providing a driver, a virtual driver that, that's safe, reliable, uh, consistent, and will make the driving a fun experience. But besides the driving itself, right, we, we want a trusted partner in the local markets that the local residents are already familiar with. For example, that like Uber as a global ride-hailing, uh, platform, uh, most of the people are familiar and trust. So, so essentially, our partnership with Uber is that Uber can provide uh a, a customer acquisition tool and also we work together to push the boundaries of the local regulation to support. Robotaxi. So, so I think the partnership is essential in our global expansion. So how do you think that You know, urban transit, urban planning might change as robo taxis become more common. You know, you might expect maybe, you know, on the negative side it could be that there are more cars on the road, fewer people take buses, take the subway. On the other hand, you know, automated driving may be safer than human drivers for a variety of reasons. There are kind of implications for labor and for jobs, but how do you see kind of this again this question of urban mobility changing as we have more robotaxis on the road? Uh, 000, I think the automated driving, such as robotaxi, it could be other forms of automated driving that actually will make, uh, mobility to be much more easily accessible. Uh, it could be that there's less usage of subways, but that on the other hand, there could be much less usage of self-driven cars that in a, in a way, think about a lot of urban space. Uh, uh, uh, built for parking where the personal used cars are very less efficiently used, right? Most of the cars drive like 2 hours a day. So, so if there's robotaxi becomes more, more ubiquitous everywhere, then, then it can be, will save more parking space. Well, it can be that the, the mobility becomes much easily accessible. Then maybe, maybe the urban planning will be different because, because the mobility. If it becomes ubiquitous and everywhere, you, you, you may not need to live in the city center. So, so I think the implication is, uh, will, will be profound and probably still. Eventually we will change the whole urban planning and it changed the way of our life. And of course with with all new technologies I mean there's an element of kind of trust getting people used to the idea there's working with regulators there's convincing potential customers um I know China earlier this year briefly paused robotaxi rollouts because of you know incident involving one of your competitors. Um, but kind of what's your strategy for, you know, working with regulators to convince them of trust and safety, to encourage customers that it's totally fine that this car has no driver, don't worry about it, kind of what, what's your strategy for those kinds of stakeholder engagements? Yes, I, I think the most important one, of course, is by, by facts, by metrics. So, so we, we actually, uh, by working with the regulators, we show, we, we have all the, uh, data that we collected on the safety side, on the convenience side, on the impact to the, uh, local transportation network. So I, I think seeing is believing, right? Once we were able to present. All this statistical data to the, to the regulators and also to the passengers. Uh, we, we, we'll have a strong argument that it is a much safer technology. Of course, uh, magic is numbers is just one side. The other side is, is by convincing, by storytelling, and also by really putting more vehicles on the road. Providing a great service to the customers, I think, I think the, uh, a lot of cases our new customers actually come to our platform because the word of mouth. So I think, uh, uh, by building, uh, early adopters by building a really trusted cohort of users we'll be able to have that, that really, uh, uh, uh, snowball effect to have more and more people joining and trusting our services. You know, China's become really strong in this, in this space. I mean there's you, there, there are other kind of robotaxi startups, large companies getting involved too. Briefly, you know, why do you think China has shown itself to have kind of I I say surprising strength, maybe that's the wrong word, but, but, but why is China proved to be kind of surprisingly strong in this robotaxi space. Well, I think definitely there are several factors. One is, uh, the, uh, uh, government itself, uh, is very progressive. Say for example, in Pony's case, we were able to, uh, test and operate on the open roads, even, even 9 years ago, when, when the technology wasn't even as mature as what it is today. So that, Supportive regulation is definitely important. Second, of course, is because of the, uh, over the last 20-30 years, the whole ecosystem or the whole tech industry really accumulated a lot of the, uh, talents, components, a lot of the know-hows. So, so when we enter into the market, we were able to actually hire, uh, uh. Really strong candidate, uh, who's passionate and who's experienced. And, and also the whole ecosystem, right, when we need a lighter, when we need, uh, say, say a mechanical parts, we were able to find, uh, uh, uh, uh, around us. So, so I think all those, essentially it's, it's, it's like a whole system needs to be in place for this, especially for mobile taxi who's, I think, I think the key challenge is, it's such a complex system, it requires hardware, software talents. Regulation and everything else. I think uh China provides a good, uh, system to support this kind of innovation. Mhm. You know, I, I want to take the opportunity to ask kind of whether you've seen kind of customer behavior change after using robotaxis for a long time. I will tell you when I first rode in one, it was weird for about 5 minutes and then quickly became not weird. And in fact the ride was a lot smoother than than a human driven taxi, but you know there are, you know, people talk about oh people are hiring robo taxis to take phone calls. They're hiring them to, um, for kind of purposes that people maybe wouldn't have expected going as the sector was growing. So from your experience kind of as from running Pony AI, what are some kind of interesting customer behavior changes that you've seen as robotaxis start becoming more popular? Mm, I, I think certainly one thing we can see is the, the, the, the, there are certain big percentage of the customers become regular commuters, uh, once they, exactly as you described, the, uh, a lot of the new riders. Uh, 1st 5 minutes, they, they may be wandering around. They, they even take out their phones to take a video, but then after the first great experience, they, they start using the robotaxi as very regular. I think they're robotaxi compare with. Human driving taxi, they provide some unique experience, right? It's a private space. You feel a lot, uh, uh, safe, private, and, uh, also it's, it's consistent. I think that's an important part is you, you, as a if you get a human taxi, a human-driven taxi, you, you might get a good driver in one day, the next day might not be, right? So it's a consistent, it's always a clean environment. Uh, give, give you a specific example. For example, for, for the. For female riders at night, they feel a lot safer, uh, just because there's no driver. So, so it's, it's, uh, once it's at night, there's a lot, the, the female riders actually percentage is getting much higher. Um, uh, there, there's, uh, To just give you an example, but, but it's essentially, I think, uh, it will become a regular. I think the, the, the, uh, our riders are very diverse across different age groups, uh, different, uh, professions. So, so it's definitely not, not something, uh, unique just for the tech-savvy people to try. It becomes very, very, uh, general to the public. Well, as I said, I, I look forward to them being a lot more ubiquitous. Um, in the cities where I am. James, thank you so much for helping, for coming on the program today. We're very glad to have you. Yeah, thank you, thanks for having us and uh and uh who whoever goes, comes to our, our, the cities that we operate, definitely, definitely, uh, give it, give it a try. You can download Tony AI app. It's, it's through through App Store or you just use the WeChat, uh, mini program. You, you're gonna love it. All right.

AS Watson is approaching AI as an enterprise transformation—not a series of IT pilots. Its CEO-led, cross-functional approach embeds AI in workflows, decision-making, and performance management across the business, rather than leaving adoption to a single technology team. To support this effort, the company has appointed 31 global strategic technology partners to accelerate its AI-powered online and offline retail transformation.

In this one-on-one conversation, Group CEO Malina Ngai discusses what this shift means in practice—from smarter warehouse operations and more connected customer experiences to the leadership choices required to make AI integral to the way the business operates. How can companies turn AI investment into compounding value? And what must leaders be willing to change to achieve it? 

Malina Ngai, Group Chief Executive Officer, AS Watson Group 

From Efficiencies to Reinvention: Navigating the AI Transformation

Thank you, Andrew. Doctor Molina and I, thank you for joining us at Leaders Forum. In this session, we're going to discuss AS Watson's approach to AI transformation. And how this 185 year old company is reconfiguring for the intelligent age. But before we go into the details, um, I want to start at the beginning. Was there an aha moment for you? Was there a moment of realization when it became apparent that AI wasn't just another technology, but had the power to reshape your business, your entire industry, and therefore, it would require an entirely different approach? What did that moment look like? Well, as you said, we are 185 years old. So imagine that uh back in 1841, there's no electricity, no telephones, no internet, and certainly no AI. Uh, and, uh, over the past 185 years, well, basically it wasn't is as old as organized retail, I think. So we went through all the changes, you know, from an independent store to a chain store, and then the chain store becomes a category special. List, and then you from a local retailer becomes an international retailer. And then when the digital age came, and then we have to transform ourselves so that we have we have an Opus model which is offline, uh uh integrated with online and giving that customer experience. The interesting thing is, for all those changes over the two centuries, the change is mainly about like where you sell and how you sell. But then AI is very different. AI is very different because When you think about retail, it's a lot of processes. Oh gosh. You have to manage all the supply chain, move thousands and thousands of products, you have to manage promotions, you have to, uh, execute a lot of, uh, procedures in the company to get it running. In the past it's 10 hours a day, now it's 24/7. Now with AI. It's the first time we are able to look into how we reinvent the model so that we don't just focus on processes, OK. AI can do that, but we focus more on customers experience and problem solving. Now this morning, for example, when you wake up, You told me you run, right? When you wake up, you wouldn't be thinking about that. I need a bottle of vitamins. You think about, ah, today I need to be very energetic, right? On a good day. And when I wake up, when a customer wake up, they wouldn't be thinking about, I need a skincare product. They will be thinking about, oh, I need a healthy Younger looking skin. So that's what customers want. They don't want thousands of products. They just want retailer who understand them and being able to provide the right solutions. So with AI this is the first time that I told my team, this is the first time that we can look beyond just efficiency. It's about reinvention, how we relocate the way we serve customers. So that's when we think AI is transformational. So there wasn't necessarily one moment of friction. It was a kind of overall realization of this how expansive the influence of artificial intelligence would be. Um, so let's talk about how you're doing that. You've made the case that, that leadership, culture, organizational design is going to be what determines the success of implementing AI at scale. Um, and therefore, you've said in past remarks, it must be CEO led. So tell us about AS Watson's enterprise mandate around AI and what CEO ownership really looks like. When, um, decades ago when I led the digital transformation at the time, meaning that we have besides our physical retail experience, we have to build online. And at the time when we integrate technology, uh, either CRM, uh, e-commerce, and a lot of different types of technology. I will call it is vertical, it's top down. So we, we were in the boardroom, we decided we need to have go for this strategy. This is the investment, and then we pass that on to IT and pass that on to HR for example, for training. So then you go function by function and market by market. So that's what I call is vertical. But for AI what I What I see is my vision is that the whole organization needs to move together. So I would call the AI is horizontal. I can't afford the time to let a silo department or one department or a couple of departments to lead it and then try to roll out market by market and function by function. So then I started to um Uh, chair all the meetings. I talked to every market. I have 30 markets, and then I, I talked to every function to start everyone to understand and give them the transparency. There's still some companies where, um, the, the people who work in the company, they are They hesitate whether they should use AI or not use AI. But in AS Watson, we have announced our strategy, uh, last year is a human AI, uh, partnership strategy. And everyone, you should bring the AI assistant with you to work, help you to think faster and smarter. So that's step one. That's why I call it. COLED meaning that I, I would have to lead it because this is not the time to delegate. If you look at AI, I, I know we talk about AI like opportunities, but at the same time you look at AI, it's like crisis. Crisis meaning that technology develops so quickly, both from uh customer and consumer adoption and also all the companies. So if you, you don't do it in the right way quickly, it could be a crisis. But every crisis has opportunities. And at the same time, it allows me to bring in um a different meaning to agility, agility, because when we talk a lot about uh AI and everyone talks agility, we need to be very agile, the world is very uncertain. But agility is not speed. And this is what I told the team. I have a, I brought a video. OK, can I show a video? Yes, please. I think we have a video to demonstrate, uh, what Melina is talking about with regards to agility. Let's cue that. But Holland comes in for a pit stop. Time to refuel and change tires. Lou Moore himself changes the tires. Only 4 crew members, including the driver, are allowed to work on the car. It's a tense time. Holland stays in his seat, anxious to get away. Let's watch. Remember this 67 seconds. Mhm. Oh, just in case you didn't see it the first time. Yeah, this is the world record now is 2 1.8. So here we're looking at AI speed. This is not AI, this is real. Right? But I mean, this represents that, that agility. So, Normally when we see, even if you haven't been to F1, you have seen it on news, for example, you think, wow, Formula One is all about speed. Yeah. But in Formula One, when you have a car running 300 kilometers per hour, if you ask an engineer, Actually, the F1 engineer, the first thing they think about is not how to build a faster car, it's how to reduce the drag. So the weight of the car or the dirty air from the front and other car in the front, or they have uh some radio, uh they can't. clearly, so every millisecond decisions, it's like a drag if you don't do it right. So in an organization, if I can use this example, is that back in the 1950s, it's not, it's not slow, it's 67 seconds, but today it's 2 seconds. So when for an organization to look at AI it is not about how AI bring you speed. For us in AS Watson agility is acceleration minus friction. So, you've mentioned just now that you uh want to move from AI being a source of crisis to AI being a source of opportunity. You've given yourself as CEO the mandate to bring that together across your 30 markets, across your 17,000 stores um worldwide. So, let's talk about a specific Example of how you're doing that, the impact AI is making and and how you're measuring that impact as well. Can you give us a specific example of how you've reconfigured a workflow, a team, or maybe a whole business unit around AI and also the benefits you've seen as a result? Let's get into the weeds a little bit. Sure. Going back into that formula first, when I talked to the team, when I, I, I now see that every function like every, every two months. So the, the, the first question I ask them is not how you use AI. It's like, what friction have you identified? Because that is very important for us to take AI to the next level. And when you talk about ROI, a lot of people will think about AI investment is quite expensive, it's, it's, it's not cheap. So then what is ROI? Now if we focus just on AI efficiency, then we're trying to measure how many hours you save and so that will only just change the percentage. But what we are trying to do and think about is how to reinvent with the human and AI partnership so that we can change the equation. I brought you some equations, so share with you. I hold that up. So traditionally in, in, uh, in any organization. Then you have a, you have a perfect strategy in the boardroom which I pull up the image for Melina please which I would say is like you have a 100% perfect strategy but then as you move down the different levels of the Organization, every hands off, there's some discount to it because it's either uh communication scare people, how do they understand your strategy in the boardroom versus uh some inefficiencies or maybe capabilities. So if you look at the first number. is 50.4. Right. So meaning that if you, if you have a 100% perfect strategy in the boardroom, it could become 50. My customer can only experience like 50% of what we want to do. Now with AI you see the middle, this illustration is when you apply AI to organization, then it improves efficiency, right? And it could be even better than efficiency can cut off one of the process. So you see the formula actually have one less number in it and then that's nearly perfect. So then you get 99, quite close. So meaning that AI efficiency will help you to improve the percentages. But what we are trying to do in AS Watson is The human plus AI partnership because when you use AI to give us the speed, the scale, the intelligence, and the human brings, you know, that that context, we know how, what our customers need at what time. We, uh, we, the human also have that meaning and connection, how we provide a human touch to the surface. Then the formula is the equation completely changed. We can generate more value than just improving the percentage of every step. So this is how I explain this within the company. Agility is acceleration minus friction. You can't accelerate the pedal and then you have friction. So when we transform, we also need to look at the whole new way of doing every process and then focus much more on our customers. And what metrics are you looking at to measure the success of that? What we try to do, one, first of all, the first one, maybe a lot, maybe not a lot of companies do that. We measure the colleagues' engagement rate. So we, since we started um to promote human AI strategy in the company, we always do colleagues engagement rate, meaning that we, we ask the colleagues, you know, how they, whether they like work, what is the part they like, etc. But then the score has jumped up a lot in further to be in the uh several departments because the team leaders told us that when we started to use more AI. The colleagues love their job. They, they are able to have more interactions than facing the screen and that changes the engagement of our people working in the company to start with. And then we started to then put through into more customer front uh initiatives, then we measured customer love score. So for example, if we are able to free up more time for our store, our colleagues in the store to service the customer, then if you If you have shopped with Watsons, for example, then we will be asking you right after your shopping to give us your experience. How was that service? And we continue to see that customers love score improving. And this is uh not the usual way that people would measure AI because score, yeah, customer love score and our people love score in the company. So, let's talk about that engagement among your staff. So, as we mentioned at the top, AS Watson this year is celebrating its 185th anniversary. Um, it's an incredible achievement, almost two centuries. So, how do you tool and retool for new technologies while still keeping that heritage, that culture, that DNA that has driven your success for almost two centuries? How do you get that balance right between um embracing what's new without throwing out what has gone before? We actually start with the purpose of the company. Um, back to a decade ago, and we, we are Asian-based international company. So in the early days, we don't, it's not like some of the, uh, maybe the European or US company where you have a vision statement and a mission statement. We're very focused on like generating profit. So then, but then a decade ago, I started to see that we, we needed to transform the, the company. And it's not just a company that is just in Hong Kong. We're in 30 markets in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. So how do you link everyone together in terms of their focus without losing focus, whatever technology you put in a company. So then we, uh, I put in a team of young managers, not for a consult consultancy, but then we would brainstorm what what should be our purpose in AS Watson and in one hour they came out of the room and they told me with a flip chart at the time, sorry, still like 1010 years ago, a while ago they have flip chart and then a smiley, they said, Melina, I think the purpose of AS Watson. should be to put a smile on customers' faces. It's easy to understand what in whatever languages, it's easier to understand whether you are working in the office, you're working in the warehouse, or you work in the stores, and this is what we believe in. And within 30 minutes, we said this is going to be our purpose. Hence the customer love score. Exactly. So we don't have mystery shopper, it's customer love score, we just ask our customer. So we, we basically, we put our purpose in the center of everything we do. So here is AI when we even when we put in, we have to do supply chain optimization a couple of years ago when we start to have, have our Opus or model, etc. Then even you go to the warehouse, I, I talk about customer love, because if we are able to manage all the inventory on Time and being able to do the right delivery, we put a smile on customers' faces. And then the and then the the warehouse team start to understand what they do. They are not hiding somewhere in a very hot uh um premises to move products. They're actually putting a smile on customers' faces. Likewise, every function we go through that everyone knows this is the thing they do has a contribution to customer love. I, I believe when the company has a purpose. Whatever technology is not going to take away that focus. Absolutely. So customer satisfaction, customer love being a single-minded obsession that drives every decision you make, whether that's staffing, whether that's technology, and that being at its core. Um, I want to move on to talking about um employee love and, and engagement there. So you've talked before about AI as a tool for inclusion, which is interesting and, and counter. some oft-cited narratives around AI and how it could potentially um exacerbate existing human biases and so on. But at AS Watson, you've reported that AI powered automation at a warehouse in China has actually helped to increase the female workforce. You're, of course, on our most powerful women Asia list, uh, Melina, tell us about this and, and tell us the impact the tech has had. I was in Foshan two months ago. Uh, I went to our stores and then I usually try to make time to go to the warehouse. It's a bit remote, but then it's important. When I, I, I have read a lot of documents and videos and everything about the, the, the automation and the AI we put in the infantry forecasting, etc. I've seen that, but until the time that I was, I walked into the warehouse. I look around, it's not like you have many people moving boxes anymore. Everything is so orderly because we put in the different automation. And the thing is, the team told me that in the past, the warehouse, like a typical warehouse, we, we have 8 in in China and 80 around the world, but usually it's about 80% of our team would be males because we do require a lot of heavy lifting. We have big boxes. But now because of automation, uh, all, all, both males and females, they don't need to lift anything very heavy. We ensure that the robot can do that because it's for for our colleagues' wellness. So then in that warehouse, we have 62% of our colleagues, they are Now females and that was something that really positively surprised me of how technology can also bring more diversity in the company and actually in our technology team in AS Wilson we are our senior leaders 50% male and 50%. And females we have evolved that over the years uh for even for the technology team. We're here, Melina at the Fortune Leaders Forum. So I want to close by asking you a question on the leadership choices you've had to make enabled to do everything you've just been talking about. What has been the hardest leadership choices required to land that AI transformation? What must leaders be willing to change to get an ROI on AI? The hard decision for a lot of leaders, or maybe I'll start with the biggest risk of all the leaders with this type of AI, um, technology is We put AI to improve uh today's process. So basically you get a better version of yesterday. Uh, but we lose sight on how we can use AI, which is really transformative technology, to help us to reinvent how we serve our customers. Um, and the choices sometimes we will have to make is we focus a lot on the numbers, like how much we need to invest. But my starting point was actually focus a lot on human. What's the role of human going forward? Uh, is it really that we with AI we're going to cut out 30% of our workforce, or actually it's going, we are going to increase the quality of our people intelligence. Uh, in the past, it's just not possible to handle that amount of data within a quick speed and to analyze things and make decisions. But now with AI help people can actually play a much higher quality role. So initially there was something that is not easy to explain to the board. And what we are trying to, to think about also is not just an ROI for, for this year, how many hours we save. It's about how many, how many new ideas we have generated. Since last year October, we, we, we launched our strategy, our human AI strategy last October. And since last October, Not even a year. We have generated a lot more new ideas that we can put out in the market for the customers and for the way we, we serve. This is the kind of value we are trying, we are trying to, um, to reinvent. So this is, I, I, we have a lot of leaders in the room. And I do hope that you can focus more on the human side. And for me, my, my vision for AS Watson is that I would love to be able To create a sustainable company that's powered by technology. But with a human soul and going forward, I think retail is going to be more human. It's not going to be less. That's a perfect note to finish on. Thank you so much, Melina, for talking to us about AS Watson CEO-led enterprise level AI transformation, about customer love as a metric for success, and finally the difficult leadership decisions required to get there. Please join me in thanking Doctor Melina Nay. Thank you. Thank you so much.

The Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area is the world’s largest continuous urban area—a megalopolis of 11 cities, 86 million people, and a $2 trillion economic engine. Its ambition is not simply scale, but integration: linking finance, advanced manufacturing, technology, research, logistics, and talent across jurisdictions and systems to strengthen China’s global economic competitiveness. The question for the next decade is whether greater connectivity can translate into more innovation, investment, and global reach—and how businesses and investors can navigate the practical frictions that remain. Can the GBA’s 11 cities operate not simply as neighbours, but as a genuinely connected innovation economy? And what would that mean for its global competitors and partners?

Edward Au, Southern Region Managing Partner, Deloitte China 
Mr Alex Che Weng Keong, President of the Board of Directors, Commerce and Investment Prom
Derek Zhang, Executive Editor, Fortune China 

The GBA Decade: Opportunity, Innovation, and Global Impact

Thanks Lee. So this session will be Chinese, uh, Xie xie, Alex Xie Xie Xi. OK, thank you very much, Alex. So today we would like to talk about the policy making and from the external researchers' perspective, how do we read the Greater Bay Area. So for Greater Bay Area, the population is around 80 million something, uh, equals to the population of Germany and the total GDP reaches $2 trillion USD equals Italy. We compared to other Bay Area like in New York, or the Tokyo Bay Area, or the California Bay Area or San Francisco Bay Area. We need to ask us how we make our GBA a place a more innovative. So how could we make Um, use of our resources. And make it, put it into a big use and also to realize innovative. Industry, innovative area. So Alex, as a policymaker, how do you view GBA? So first of all, GDA here? Yeah. It's different from other Bay Area. I was, So there are 3 different currencies. Three different currencies. And this can be quite challenging, but a great opportunity. Let me give you an example. So because of the historical reason? Macau has great close relationship with the Portuguese speaking country. So in terms of promote trading with these countries and regions, Macau can play a vital role. And to promote The production resources circulation. So that is why Chinese government decided to set up a cooperation zone between Zhuhai and Macau. And Macau used to be an independent tariff area. How could we contribute more to the GBA area for innovation in the next 10 years? It needs a lot of production resources. So Hanxin, GBA and Macau collaboration zone play a very vital role role for the flow of capital to the flow of talent and flow of production elements. So this is very important and that matches with the national strategy. As a person working in Macau, I should say that Guangdong province, Macau and Hong Kong are different. The difference can play a vital advantage. So this vital advantage could be played if we work together as a team. So we believe that this, this power is amazing in the GBA. While in among, among the totally nice cities in GBA that Macau can play an important role. We will collaborate with all the other brother and sister cities. OK, sorry, it's not nice, 11 cities in GBA. Yes, we have the labor division, and we could work together to create the new booming engine for the economic growth. Yes, so let's have an example. For example, last year, we have a war intellectual intellectual property organization. I got a report that. The report is telling people that about 76,000, 76,000 enterprises with all the levels, the state level, provincial level, city level, innovation enterprises, and they are located in totally 11 cities in GPA, 76,000 innovative and tech companies. So we need the innovation, we need the collaboration as well. Then if we could work like that, then we will work like a big team, and it will be a world-class, a world-class innovation hub. So for the GPA coming 10 years, The key thing is not we separate, is not we build the city alone. No, we like to work together as a team to build up a new operation system, a new OS. Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau. We could have a clear labor division. And then we can work as the engine for the whole GPA. Then we have, we could develop some standard criteria and for Zhongguan and Zhongsan, etc. They could work like a medium, like a medium hub, medium laboratory that's focusing on the engineering, etc. And also, Macau, for example, Hong Qingzhong between Macau and Shanghai, it could be a very big region for the TCM, traditional Chinese medicines R&D center, and also the data technology. Especially to develop for the Portuguese market. So by this way, that every city in this GPA region has its own role and everybody is a strong member of this big team. And the United laboratory. This can work as a huge platform to integrate the resources from 76,000 tech companies. The United laboratory could work as the united platform for inspection and testing commissioned. Such kinds of the big layout will be amazing in the world. While talking about China, Macau, huh, we also developed like uh the third 5-year plan to adapt to the 5-year plan in the mainland China. So, Macau, we have our own 5-year plan. When we have a goal. The goal is that in the coming 30 years, we got to improve the proportion of non-gambling business up to 60% within the GP or the GDP of the city. So as Alice just now mentioned that we need the support from the government in terms of policy planning, and also we need the industry's engagement, and also we need the participants of our citizens. So this is a localized layout, a localized business plan. So Macau, now we already formulated a big framework. So the next job is how to implement this policy. In the past that we focused more, I mean 90% of the resources allocated to the gambling industry. But in the next 35-year plans periods that Macau gov, not only the government but also the industry and the citizens will shift our eyes to the non-gambling business. And for example, for the emerging industry, Macau government invests 130 billion bucks. To invest the emerging industry including the the innovative TCM. The science technology, the data technology, etc. Macau, we have an independent, uh, legislative body. It's independent one, responsible for the development of our policy, laws and laws, and regulations. And it also, Macau also we have the independent regulatory. Unity. So that's different to the mainland China and Macau we have the independent legislative system, uh, regulatory system, and a large amount of investment bodies. So this is a little bit different to the mainland China's systems. So investors also we have a strong confidence in Macau because of our operation system, because of our confidence of a decision decisiveness. So for example, Macau now investing a lot of money to build up the industry park, university, R&D center, institution, etc. So this year, more than 20 billion bucks, these kinds of the funds already introduced to build up the new laboratory. And this could be comparable to Hong Kong and Singapore. What we hope is that through this opportunity that we want to invite people come to Macau to to get more understanding to this city, to know that what we have, to know what the advantage we have. And what kinds of the room that we could develop in perspective of the new emerging industries. So whatever in the macro or in the micro level, that Macau is making the efforts to develop the new economics. So, By one time for 2 years, we do the investigation of market and, and we collect the data, do the analysis, and we find out that which industry have a good growth. And in 2025, life size ranked number one last year, and semiconductor ranked number 2. And the cleaning technology, for example, ranked number 3. So that in this industries, a lot of the investors, they earn a lot. The ROI is quite satisfactory. So before that uh people don't know, I mean the shareholders of the entertainment company or uh a casino company, they don't know where to invest. They earn money and then reinvest into the gambling industry. But now we have more space to grow. For example, the bio biochemistry, bioscience, semiconductor, science, technology, new energy, car making, etc. So all this industry and what when they develop in mainland China, and also they come to Hong Kong to do IPO and then, They, they come to Macau to do the IPO. And all this, you know, that through the IPO in, in Hong Kong, in Macau and Singapore, etc. we got the funds to support R&D and then they could have a strong funds to support them when they go global. And it's become a globalized enterprise group. So this is very good cycle, a very good ecosystem, right? Yeah, as mentioned by Alice that, Uh, we have a complete and good framework of the legislation, and we have the interconnection to mainland China in terms of their finance and fintech, etc. So that Macau, we have a good platform for the innovation and creativity. GBA, this is a huge market containing 11 cities. So that we would like to call the interest of the partners in worldwide. So take Macau as the gateway to step into the GBA and the mainland China. So for the capital investors, this is a very good window to understand the New development space in GBA and the whole China. While Macau in order to bring more opportunities to the investors, also we already completed the stock systems connection. And the bond connection, etc. So that's to make sure the circulation channel are open to the investors. So for AI technology, etc. many finance enterprises or high-tech enterprises, when they come to Macau, they will feel comfortable. Because that's Macau, we have to complete the legislative framework to guarantee the safety, the security of their business data. So whatever they're doing the flash science, biochemistry or etc. that they should, they should release their worry because that Macau government want to protect their benefits, protect their interests. And we know that Hong Kong, there is a bound area, a bound area. The bound area is in between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It's a new high-tech zone. That new hi-tech zone is especially designed for the two cities to put their energy there to develop the high-tech. So this is called a pond that's along with the two sides of the Shenzhen River. So this is an innovative one, an innovative zone for the technical experiments. So, in Shenzhen Industry Park, we do the innovation and also that we also go to the bound zone because the bound zone, the negative negative place, this is circulated. To have the clear illustration for what would be OK for the enterprises to engage. So this kind of behavior is very important for the GPA. Not only the government but also the enterprises to develop. So not only the bond in between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, but also the Hengqin zone in between Macau and Zhuhai. So we could play our unique advantage to call the attention. From the global tech company or science company come here to do the R&D and then to put the production facilities in mainland China to enjoy the low cost of the labor, low cost of the office facilities, etc. then the enterprise, newly established enterprises could have a better growth. So also only in Hong Kong and Macau, etc. Also a lot of the uh data center being established. And also some of them professionally run the data for the overseas partners. And this also offered the opportunity for Macau. Because this is a good one, right? So, also the central government and Macau regional government. Already have the common understanding that Macau needs to diversify as business, not just rely on the gambling or the casino only, but also versatilize, versatilize the business to make it worse, make it diversify, right? So as we also talked today, that we also could use Macau as a good platform to do the R&D, then the product development, especially for the Patuki market because Macau have a strong and long term ties with the Patuki market. So in In April or May, the time that the chief executive of Macau led a big delegation containing 120 enterprises traveled to Portugal, and then we signed over 106 cooperation agreements and with the total amount over $300 million 300 million dollars US dollars. And at the time we we we will visit the president and also the premier, as well as the head of the Legislative council and the Supreme Court. What does it mean? It means that Macau and Portugal still would like to further to strengthen our cooperation. So these kinds of cooperation is very significant for Macau to acquire a new generation growth in economics. So the cooperation in science and technology together with not only Portugal but the other countries would help Macau to develop the non-casino business. So in the future that we're going to witness the happening of the new business growth in Macau, not just the casino, but also more business. And Macau's legislative system also similar to Portugal's to Portugal and the other European countries and regions. There's another advantage. OK, so looking into the future, next 10 years, so if we can reach the imaginative connection of the deeply integrated Greater Bay Area. So to the global partners, when they talk about Macau, what do you want them to talk about Macau? What keywords do you want them to put on Macau? Well, for GBA I think that innovation, but whether we can be an international Bay Area. We need more international impact. So we sail around the world. Yes, but whether we can have the international influential power, especially for Macau, for Macau, today we are in a great facility. The hospitality of Macau is top in the world. We are the world tourism city. But if that is not a world tourism city, but a world commercial city. Is Macau still a top commercial city? When you think about make exhibition, make conference, do you think Macau is the first choice? Yes, here we have a lot of events and we would like to thank Fortune for selecting Macau as a place for leaders forum. But will more people think Macau as the first choice for convention and exhibition. I think that Macau still needs more employment to the next generation. Yeah, yeah, I think that to attract more talent, you need to provide them with decent job. So that is important. So if that is 2030, when we look back, do you think you are successful, Advan? Wow. So 2030 or 2035, when I look back. Well, I think that if a young entrepreneur will say, I'm from Macau, I'm rather from Shenzhen, so that means Macau is successful. And also Macau should be different, right? Right now people think Shenzhen is innovative, but Macau also needs to be innovative, and this city should be replicable compared to others. We should have something unique. OK, as a policymaker, I think you also have something to say. Yeah, we work together with the motherland. So 10 years later in 2036 or 2035, so firstly, I hope that when you come to Macau, not just for exhibition or conference, you have business to do here and we can include Henching area into Macau. Not just think about Macau, but also Henching and Macau. So Henqing corporate. Uh, cooperative zone should have more opportunities. OK, McKenzie has a prediction, have a forecast said by 2030, the economic output should reach around the 3.6 to $4 trillion. To the economic scale of Germany. Right now, the population equals Germany, but GDP if we can equal to the GDP of Germany, that will be a very ambitious goal because Germany is the biggest economy in Europe. So if Macau would like to be a technology innovation center, that would be an ambitious goal. And we need to become a real economy with innovation, with the scale, with uniqueness. OK, thank you. Thank you.

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