The China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) acts as a "bridge", connecting the global expansion of cultural industries to the new AI

People's Daily, Beijing, September 14 (Wei Huan) From September 9 to 13, the 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS for short) was held at Shougang Park in Beijing, where "going global" became a high-frequency keyword. Micro short dramas, domestic animations, and online games, the three new cultural pillars, made a collective appearance, accelerating their march to the world riding the wave of AI.

At the exhibition, a number of enterprises from Guangxi have set their sights on the same blue ocean: lowering the threshold for going global with AI technology, so that Chinese short dramas can take root and thrive in ASEAN.

"We brought our self-developed Nova AI one-stop short drama generation platform. It is not a simple AI generation tool, but a new type of infrastructure for micro short drama production," introduced Zhou Peijin, Chairman of Guangxi Shanhai Xingchen Media Group Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Shanhai Xingchen"). The platform connects the full chain from script creation, picture production to channel distribution, upgrading the former "workshop-style production" that relied on individual experience into a replicable and manageable "industrial assembly line".

While AI drives the acceleration of production, Shanhai Xingchen also focuses on conveying cultural warmth through content. In recent years, the enterprise has continued to explore the integrated innovation path of "micro short drama + cultural tourism" and "micro short drama + intangible cultural heritage", allowing ASEAN audiences to get to know Guangxi and understand China through the small screen. Its overseas platform Stardust TV has covered more than 200 countries and regions around the world, with over 12,000 short dramas launched.

"Guangxi has geographical and passage advantages facing ASEAN, which can not only reduce the language, production and operation costs of cultural products going global, but also drive the development of the whole chain including creation, translation and dubbing, copyright, and cultural tourism," said Zhou Peijin, adding that this provides important support for short dramas to go overseas.

Many short dramas have gone overseas and won the love of audiences. Photo by Wei Huan from People's Daily

Nowadays, AI short dramas have frequently appeared on the stage of national-level exhibitions, which shows him a clearer signal: they are not just the "new favorite" in the traffic field, but regarded as a new category and new track for cultural service trade. "CIFTIS brings together policies, channels, capital and customers, which can promote the overseas expansion of short dramas from 'working alone' to 'ecological cooperation'."

AI short dramas are becoming a new engine of cultural trade. Nanning Peak Culture Communication Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Peak Culture") is also actively seizing this opportunity.

The company targets the AIGC track, and its self-developed "Drama Xiaobai" AIGC short video creation platform has an industrialized production capacity of 60 short dramas per month, and supports "one-click generation" of multi-language short dramas in Chinese, English, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian and other languages.

Taking technology as the fulcrum to leverage multi-party collaboration.

At the "ASEAN-oriented Service Trade Cooperation Promotion Conference" of this CIFTIS, Peak Culture, together with Guangxi Economic and Trade Vocational College, China Mobile Group Guangxi Co., Ltd., and Myanmar Minzhi Technology Co., Ltd., jointly signed the "Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement for Integrated Overseas Expansion of 'Culture + Computing Power + Supply Chain'", to jointly build a four-in-one AIGC short drama overseas cooperation system of "cultural content production + AIGC technology empowerment + computing power infrastructure + e-commerce supply chain monetization".

The project signing ceremony was held at the "ASEAN-oriented Service Trade Cooperation Promotion Conference". Photo provided by the organizer

As an important measure to respond to the Belt and Road Initiative and the autonomous region's strategic deployment of cultural, computing power and supply chain resources going global, this cooperation has become another key step for Guangxi enterprises to lay out in the ASEAN market.

Jiang Linfeng, General Manager of Peak Culture, said that relying on the full-process AIGC production capability of the company's "Drama Xiaobai" platform, combining the computing power and cross-border data channel advantages of China Mobile Guangxi, the vocational education resources of Guangxi Economic and Trade Vocational College, and the local channel resources of Myanmar Minzhi Technology Co., Ltd., the parties will jointly promote the integrated overseas expansion of culture, computing power, technology and supply chain.

"This will help Myanmar form a complete localized AIGC short drama production chain." Shifting from "single work output" to "industrial ecosystem co-construction", this cooperation model also makes Long Tianyun, Marketing Director of Myanmar Minzhi Technology Co., Ltd., full of confidence in the future market.

CIFTIS acts as a bridge, providing a good platform for enterprises to continuously explore new paths for Chinese short dramas to go global. From content export to ecological implementation, from single-point breakthrough to full-chain collaboration, the growth space of AI short dramas in ASEAN is constantly expanding. They will carry the dual expectations of cultural output and trade growth, and sail towards a broader market.

Article source: People's Daily