Editor's Note:
From November 18–19 this year, Shenzhen will host the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting—China's most important home-hosted diplomatic event of the year, held in the opening year of the country's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030). With 30 days to go before the meeting begins, Nanfang Daily, Nanfang Plus and South are launching "Amazing Guangdong at APEC," a short-video column that innovates its narrative and communication approach, telling the stories behind the "Made in Guangdong" products flying off the shelves across APEC economies on multiple platforms both at home and abroad.
The column showcases Guangdong's innovation ecosystem, industrial heritage, openness and vitality—a window onto the "hard power" of the region's ten trillion-yuan industrial clusters—while continuously strengthening the effectiveness of international communication and underscoring China's resolve to advance high-standard opening-up and share development opportunities with the world. Stay tuned.
In 2025, global shipments of AI glasses reached 8.7 million units. Companies in Dongguan alone—a single city in Guangdong—shipped more than 4 million units, accounting for nearly half of the global total and ranking first worldwide. In other words, one in every two AI glasses sold on the planet is made in Guangdong.
So what can these tiny AI glasses actually do?
In a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, a doctor wearing AI glasses can call up a patient's existing medical records at a glance; for people with visual impairments, AI glasses deliver a voice alert the moment an obstacle appears on the street; when a businessperson sits down with a foreign partner, AI glasses enable real-time interpretation across multiple languages.
These are just a few of the ways AI glasses are reshaping everyday life.
Today, Guangdong has built an AI glasses industrial cluster centered on Songshan Lake in Dongguan, gathering leading companies such as Huawei, Cosonic Intelligent Technologies and Huaqin Technology.
Within a one-hour drive in Dongguan, manufacturers can source 90 percent of the components needed to build a complete device—giving the region end-to-end capability from design to mass production.
The emerging sector is expanding rapidly, and Guangdong companies are growing with it. According to industry estimates, global AI glasses shipments are expected to double to 16 million units in 2026 and rise further to 80 million units by 2030.
Authors | Guan Xiruyi, Li Qian, Chen Rongwei, Gong Chunhui, Qi Lei, Wang Xiyong
Revised by Huang Qini, Wei Shen
