China's first fully unmanned AI-driven R&D lab opens in Shanghai

Shanghai has launched China's first AI-driven laboratory capable of fully unmanned scientific research, marking a major step forward in intelligent R&D for materials science.

Officially launched in June at Shanghai Caohejing Hi-Tech Park, the facility seamlessly integrates AI computing with experimental equipment, enabling a fully automated research process without human intervention.

It is the first system in China to support a complete, unattended scientific research workflow.

Developed by the Shanghai Academy of AI for Science, affiliated with Fudan University, the intelligent R&D platform has completed validation trials across multiple fields, including biomedicine, energy materials and cosmetics and detergents formulation. With strong cross-task transfer capabilities, it can reuse core system modules to tackle a wide range of research challenges, significantly improving the efficiency and versatility of both industrial and academic R&D.

To demonstrate its real-world capabilities, a five-day live validation campaign began on July 7. The livestream uses real industrial and scientific research tasks to evaluate the system's performance.

The results of the validation trials and key operational achievements of the unmanned intelligent laboratory will be unveiled at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) on July 18.