Canton Fair at 70: AI, Liquid Cooling, and the New Era of HVAC Exports

Canton Fair at 70: AI, Liquid Cooling, and the New Era of HVAC Exports

The 140th China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair) opened on October 15, 2026, in Guangzhou, marking the 70th anniversary of what has become the world's largest trade exhibition. With over 32,000 participating companies, 1.55 million square meters of exhibition space, and approximately 340,000 overseas buyers expected, this year's fair is not just a trade event — it is a showcase of how artificial intelligence, green technology, and system-level innovation are reshaping the global HVAC industry.

For buyers sourcing commercial HVAC equipment from China, the signals from this year's Canton Fair are clear: the industry has moved beyond selling individual products to delivering integrated, AI-powered, energy-efficient climate solutions.

AI Is No Longer a Feature — It Is the Foundation

The most striking trend at this year's fair is the depth of AI integration across every product category. A record 235,000 AI-powered products are on display, with more than 20,000 exhibitors incorporating artificial intelligence and industrial internet technologies into their offerings.

In the HVAC sector, AI has moved well beyond simple smart controls. Midea, the headline exhibitor under the theme "Smart Core, Green Home," demonstrated home air conditioners equipped with millimeter-wave radar sensing and an AI-powered M-Station temperature management system that detects room occupancy, humidity, and air quality in real time — automatically adjusting airflow direction and intensity without user input. The company received the industry's first AI inverter air conditioner algorithm certification from Intertek, validating energy savings of 30% to 50% across its product range.

Haier presented a full suite of AI-integrated HVAC solutions, including an energy management system that automatically switches between solar power, grid electricity, and stored energy based on real-time pricing and weather conditions — delivering approximately 40% cost savings. During the European heat wave in July, Haier's interconnected factory in Qingdao fulfilled an emergency order for 70,000 custom-configured air conditioners for the European market in just over ten days, with production lines switching between country-specific models every two seconds.

The message for international buyers is straightforward: AI in Chinese HVAC products is no longer a marketing label. It is delivering measurable energy savings, predictive maintenance capabilities, and adaptive comfort that directly impact operating costs.

Liquid Cooling Takes Center Stage

Perhaps the most significant development for the commercial HVAC industry at this year's fair is the emergence of data center liquid cooling as a mainstream product category. As AI computing drives unprecedented heat densities in data centers worldwide, Chinese manufacturers are leveraging their HVAC engineering expertise to address this rapidly growing market.

Midea showcased a comprehensive data center liquid cooling solution achieving annual PUE as low as 1.2. The core CDU (Coolant Distribution Unit) delivers 2.6 MW of cooling capacity per unit, scalable up to 4 MW, with non-stop maintenance design, dual filtration, and dual power supply for continuous operation. The company's magnetic-levitation supplementary cooling CDU attracted significant attention from international buyers at the fair.

These are not concept products. Midea's liquid cooling systems have already been deployed in China Telecom's first large-scale fully liquid-cooled AI computing center in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and in a T3-rated data center in Wuhu. The company has also achieved large-scale delivery to a leading Southeast Asian cloud provider. A dedicated liquid cooling manufacturing base in Shunde, representing over 1 billion yuan in investment, is scheduled to begin production in August 2027.

The convergence of HVAC and data center cooling represents a fundamental expansion of the addressable market for Chinese manufacturers. Buyers sourcing VRF systems and chillers today can increasingly look to the same suppliers for next-generation liquid cooling solutions.

Green Technology Becomes a Trade Requirement

Green and low-carbon products account for 26% of all exhibits at this year's fair — a historic high. This reflects a structural shift: environmental performance is no longer a premium feature but a market access requirement, particularly for buyers in Europe, where the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is progressively taking effect.

Gree demonstrated its "Zero Carbon Source" solar-powered air conditioning system, which integrates photovoltaic generation, energy storage, and intelligent power management with 99% DC conversion efficiency. The system operates reliably at ambient temperatures up to 52 degrees Celsius and has been deployed across 35 countries and regions. Gree also showcased North America-specific heat pumps designed for extreme cold climates and R290 refrigerant products compliant with European environmental regulations.

Midea's entire product range now uses R290 and R454B environmentally friendly refrigerants, with AI-driven energy algorithms reducing actual energy consumption by up to 50%. The company's products are designed to operate across an extreme temperature range from -40 degrees Celsius (heating) to 70 degrees Celsius (cooling), addressing climate conditions from Scandinavian winters to Middle Eastern summers.

For international buyers, the green technology trend at Canton Fair signals that Chinese HVAC manufacturers are proactively engineering products to meet the world's most demanding environmental standards — reducing compliance risk for importers and distributors.

From Products to Systems: The Export Evolution

A consistent theme across all major exhibitors is the transition from individual product sales to integrated system solutions. Haier's "6-Green" framework covers the entire product lifecycle from design and procurement through manufacturing, operations, recycling, and disposal. The company's recycling plant achieves a resource recovery rate exceeding 95%, and its VCS carbon reduction project — the first in the global home appliance industry to complete full-chain VCS verification — has earned 47,600 tonnes of internationally recognized carbon credits.

Midea's presentation at the fair spanned from residential air conditioners to commercial data center liquid cooling, from refrigerators to complete home energy management systems. The company's iEasyEnergy smart energy platform enables homeowners to monitor and optimize energy consumption across photovoltaic generation, battery storage, EV charging, and HVAC — achieving up to 90% household energy self-sufficiency.

This systems-level approach has practical implications for buyers. Rather than sourcing individual components from multiple suppliers, international distributors and project developers can increasingly access complete, pre-integrated climate and energy solutions from a single manufacturer — simplifying procurement, reducing compatibility risks, and enabling single-source warranty and service arrangements.

AI-Powered Trade Infrastructure

Beyond the products on display, this year's Canton Fair also showcased how AI is transforming the trade process itself. Made-in-China.com (MIC) launched SourcingAI 3.0 at the fair, an AI-powered procurement platform that extends across the entire trade workflow from product selection and supplier matching to negotiation, transaction, and fulfillment.

The platform demonstrated its capabilities during live sourcing sessions at the fair. A UK buyer seeking industrial equipment used SourcingAI to analyze requirements across performance specifications, delivery timelines, certifications, and after-sales service — completing a supplier shortlist in hours that would traditionally require weeks. A Moroccan buyer used the platform to match multiple suppliers across solar panels, home appliances, and apparel in a single session.

For international HVAC buyers, these AI tools represent a meaningful reduction in sourcing friction — faster supplier identification, more precise requirement matching, and streamlined communication across time zones and languages.

What This Means for HVAC Buyers

The 140th Canton Fair provides several actionable takeaways for international buyers sourcing HVAC equipment from China:

AI is now a baseline expectation. Products without AI-driven energy management, adaptive comfort, and smart connectivity will increasingly struggle to compete — both in terms of buyer interest and regulatory compliance in markets with aggressive energy efficiency mandates.

Liquid cooling is a growth market. Data center construction driven by AI computing is creating a new, high-value product category. Buyers and specifiers should evaluate Chinese manufacturers' liquid cooling capabilities alongside their traditional HVAC offerings.

Green compliance is being built in. Chinese manufacturers are engineering products to meet EU CBAM, R290 refrigerant mandates, and extreme climate performance standards — reducing the compliance burden for importers and distributors.

System-level sourcing simplifies procurement. The shift from products to integrated solutions means buyers can consolidate sourcing, reduce compatibility risks, and access single-source service arrangements.

Trade tools are getting smarter. AI-powered sourcing platforms like SourcingAI 3.0 are reducing the time and complexity of finding qualified suppliers, negotiating terms, and managing transactions.

The Bottom Line

The Canton Fair at 70 is not looking backward. It is presenting a vision of Chinese manufacturing that is AI-native, environmentally engineered, and system-oriented. For the global HVAC industry, this means the products available from Chinese suppliers in 2027 and beyond will be smarter, greener, and more integrated than anything that has come before.

The manufacturers exhibiting at this year's fair are not waiting for buyers to catch up — they are already building the factories, certifying the algorithms, and deploying the liquid cooling systems that will define the next generation of commercial climate control.

Sources: Canton Fair official reports, Xinhua News Agency, China Daily, Sina Finance, Nanfang Daily, Foshan Daily. Midea, Haier, Gree, and MIC product data from company presentations at the 140th Canton Fair, October 15-19, 2026.