Alibaba to team up with Honor in race to build AI agentic devices

SCMP | July 14, 2026, 6:30 a.m. | Original

The Honor booth at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, June 18, 2025. Photo: NurPhoto via Getty Images

Alibaba Group Holding and Honor are set to deepen their tie-up over an operating system for AI-powered devices, as competition in the nascent “AI phone” genre gains momentum in China.

The partnership is expected to be announced at the coming World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), which kicks off on Friday in Shanghai, alongside demonstrations of new agent capabilities developed by both, according to people familiar with the matter.

Shenzhen-based Honor, spun off from Huawei Technologies in 2020, will host a sub-forum at WAIC on Saturday titled “From digital screens to embodied intelligence”, CEO Li Jian said in a post on social media platform Weibo on Tuesday.

High-profile speakers will include Xu Zhuhong, head of multimodal interaction at Alibaba’s Token Foundry unit; Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired; Xu Hao, head of research and development for Qualcomm China; and Liu Jingkang, founder of action-camera maker Insta360.

Alibaba Cloud responded with a post saying “define a new model of embodied interaction” through Honor’s Robot Phone. The device, which features a foldable robotic gimbal arm, was formally unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March but has yet to enter mass production or go on sale.

Alibaba and Honor did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.

An AI sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, July 6, 2023. Photo: Reuters
An AI sign is seen at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, July 6, 2023. Photo: Reuters

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