By Wu Kai, Wang Zhou, People’s Daily
The Sports Services exhibition area emerged as a standout among nine thematic sections at this year’s China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), showcasing the dynamic growth of China’s sports industry.
Pickleball matches and robot football games drew enthusiastic crowds, while innovative exhibits such as gel-based ice and snow materials and exoskeleton devices captured wide attention.
At the booth of Iced Hydrogel, a Beijing-based a green materials company, many visitors gathered around a small table, curiously examining a piece of “artificial ice” in the shape of a polar bear. “It feels cool to the touch. Why doesn’t it melt at room temperature?” asked Gulziya, a university sophomore from Beijing.
“This is not ordinary ice,” explained staff member Min Beifei. “It is a gel-based ice and snow material that not only resembles natural ice and snow in look and feel, but also maintains its form without melting as temperatures rise.”
Professor Zhang Kai of Beijing Institute of Technology highlighted the underlying innovation: “Our advanced cold-storage technology enables applications from mobile ice rinks to venue upgrades, reducing energy consumption in sports infrastructure.”
Shoucheng Holdings’ robotics division staged lively football matches alongside robotic dance and boxing demonstrations. “We aim to demonstrate technology’s transformative potential through robotic sports,” stated Ye Qian, chairman of the robotics subsidiary.
The exhibition demonstrated how technological innovation – from experiential exhibits to market-ready products – is fundamentally reshaping global sports experiences.
Visitors tested lightweight exoskeletons while ascending steps of a Jiuyanlou Great Wall model. At Dong Sport’s booth, Hebei province resident Ms. Wang enthusiastically operated a rowing simulator. “This is my second CIFTIS—the industry’s evolution is remarkable,” she observed, mimicking competitive rowing motions.
Technology is making sports more enjoyable and accessible. Jiang Xiaojuan, honorary president of the China Society of Industrial Economics, noted that as sports continue to integrate deeply with the internet, Internet of Things, and AI, more people will be able to freely enjoy the joy that sports bring.
At another booth, a ping-pong replay and review system from Rigour Technology, a Beijing-based high-tech enterprise specializing in sports AI, attracted many table tennis fans. As the ball was hit back and forth, a large screen displayed real-time data on its trajectory, net clearance height, speed, spin rate, and players’ reaction times.
According to vice president of the company Zhang Weihua, the system uses high-precision detection and tracking algorithms to analyze the ball’s path and landing point. It has been adopted as the official Table Tennis Review video refereeing system in events such as the World Cup and WTT tournaments, while also providing science-based training support for the Chinese national team and others.
Beyond table tennis, Rigour Technology’s independently developed “China Hawk-Eye” has been applied in football, snooker, tennis, volleyball and more. “As the football smart system equipped with ‘China Hawk-Eye’ has been used in competitions such as the AFC U20 Asian Cup, overseas youth training clubs are reaching out to cooperate with us. Our technology is going global,” Zhang said.
The “China Hawk-Eye” integrates AI, embedded chips, big data, and 5G technologies, capable of tracking multiple moving objects with millimeter-level precision. “We are committed to independent research and development, with researchers making up nearly 80 percent of our company’s workforce. We have obtained more than 50 domestic and international patents and software copyrights,” Zhang explained.
China’s sports service standards are increasingly adopted worldwide, as evidenced by projects displayed at China National Sports Group’s booth. These spanned from Belarus’s National Football Stadium and Gabon’s Stade d’Oyem to Uzbekistan’s Olympic City development.
“Take the Olympic City project in Uzbekistan as an example. Our team provided full-cycle technical support and standard consulting—from early-stage functional planning, event space design, and intelligent system integration, to later-stage event operations and maintenance,” said Pan Yufeng, head of the group’s strategy and resources department. “Our goal is not only to build venues, but also to create ecosystems.”
