China's trade engine goes digital with AI

A few minutes of input can 北京新闻网唐村书法now replace weeks of sourcing work. On Alibaba's cross-border AI agent Accio Work, users enter basic product specifications and quickly receive structured proposals. The system pulls from niche market data, social media signals and supply chain information. It identifies suppliers, compares credentials and business profiles, and drafts initial inquiry emails.

Tasks that once required repeated rounds of searching, filtering and negotiation are increasingly compressed into a single workflow. Foreign trade is starting to feel less like a sequence of manual steps and more like a continuous digital process.

If 2025 marked the point when AI agents began appearing at scale, 2026 is shaping up to be the year they begin to settle into infrastructure. The technology is no longer confined to labs or specialist teams. It is being embedded into everyday industrial operations, particularly in sectors where cross-border transactions are routine.

For Chinese exporters, the change is practical. Task-oriented AI systems are becoming part of the operational backbone — affecting how quickly firms respond to inquiries, how widely they scan potential markets and how accurately they manage regulatory and logistical complexity. In that sense, AI is gradually being absorbed into the mechanics of trade competitiveness.

The timing matters. China's total goods trade reached 11.84 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion) in the first quarter of 2026, up 15 percent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Exports rose 11.9 percent, while imports increased 19.6 percent.

Beneath the headline figures, the structure continues to shift. Private firms dominate trading activity, accounting for more than 540,000 — or 87 percent — of the 618,000 import and export entities. Market participation has become broader and more dispersed.

The export composition is also changing. Mechanical and electrical products remain central, with quarterly export value reaching $620 billion, up 21.4 percent. Semiconductors, storage components and power equipment have expanded more quickly than average.

These trends are increasingly tied to the spread of AI systems across trade-related activity, even if the connection is indirect.

The first channel of change is digitalization. This is not limited to e-commerce platforms or online transactions. It extends into how products are designed, how sourcing decisions are made, how logistics are coordinated and how firms interpret market signals.

The Accio Work case shows this at a granular level. The key shift is not just speed, but the ability to adjust sourcing decisions almost immediately as market signals change. Demand no longer arrives in neat cycles. It appears fragmented and uneven, and AI systems are able to make sense of that volatility.

Beyond sourcing, similar tools are being applied to customs processing, contract drafting, language translation and supply chain tracking. For smaller exporters, this reduces the amount of fixed overhead needed to enter unfamiliar markets.

Markets that were previously too small, too distant or too uncertain become more workable. The threshold for participation drops. Digitalization, in that sense, is quietly expanding what counts as tradable.

A second force is emerging on the supply side of technology. Since late 2023, global investment in data centers has accelerated. These facilities depend on high-performance chips, but also on a wider ecosystem: high-bandwidth memory (HBM), nonvolatile storage, servers, power systems and networking equipment.

This shift is already reshaping supply chains. Rising demand for HBM has pulled capacity away from conventional DRAM (a type of random-access semiconductor memory), tightening supply conditions and lifting prices across memory markets. Expectations of sustained demand have reinforced export growth in related categories.

AI-related goods span a wide industrial spectrum, from semiconductor equipment to advanced server systems. China's role lies less in core chip design and more in supporting layers — electrical systems, components and infrastructure equipment.

Unlike consumer-led cycles, this wave is driven by capital expenditure in computing infrastructure. That tends to make it more persistent over time, at least while investment momentum continues.

At the same time, the external environment is becoming less predictable.

Major markets are tightening trade rules. The United States has removed the duty-free threshold for low-value shipments under 800 dollars. The European Union is preparing to end its 150-euro exemption for small parcels. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism has also come into effect, with financial implications expected to build from 2027 in sectors such as steel, cement, aluminum and hydrogen.

E-commerce platforms are raising compliance requirements for certification and intellectual property. Some sellers are exiting as enforcement intensifies. Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions continue to affect energy prices, shipping costs and customs procedures.

In this setting, AI is being used for more than efficiency gains.

It is becoming part of how companies adapt to fragmentation. Instead of relying only on scale or cost advantages, exporters are leaning more on responsiveness, compliance handling and real-time information processing.

AI systems reduce the administrative burden of dealing with different regulatory regimes and shifting demand patterns. They help businesses move faster and with fewer errors across jurisdictions.

For Chinese exporters, competitiveness is gradually shifting in emphasis. Manufacturing capacity remains essential, but it is now paired with the ability to process information quickly and operate across regulatory boundaries with less friction.

Uncertainty has not disappeared. It is being absorbed differently. What is emerging is a quieter restructuring of trade. Goods still move, but they are increasingly accompanied by streams of data, automated decisions and algorithmic coordination. AI is not replacing foreign trade. It is changing the way it is organized.

The author is a professor at the School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily. 

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