China International Automotive Technology Expo – CHINA-AUTOTECH – positions itself as the country’s only full-spectrum “technology + industry” fair dedicated to the car of tomorrow. The next edition will be staged 22-24 May 2025 at the Chongqing International Expo Center, occupying 46 000 m² and expecting 600 exhibitors and 35 000 professional visitors. The show is co-located with iCar, the region’s largest new-energy-vehicle show, giving technology suppliers immediate access to OEM and tier-1 buyers that control more than 40 % of China’s total vehicle output. The organisers run a hybrid format: every physical conference is webcast with simultaneous interpretation, and a digital matchmaking platform stays open for 30 days after the show.

Exhibition sectors cover the entire R&D-to-production chain: intelligent chassis, SiC power modules, 800 V fast-charging systems, solid-state batteries, thermal-management components, lightweight composites, hydrogen fuel-cell stacks, cyber-security software, and in-vehicle entertainment chips. National pavilions from Germany, Japan and France return for 2025, while domestic corporate giants SAIC, CATL, Huawei HI, BYD and Baidu Apollo have already re-booked pavilion-size stands.

A 120-page conference programme runs in parallel. The opening plenary features minister-level officials from MIIT and the Ministry of Science & Technology, followed by keynote speeches from James Qin, President of NIO China, and Dr. Herbert Rudolph, Head of CARIAD China. Two hundred additional presentations are grouped into ten vertical forums: Software-Defined Vehicle, Intelligent Manufacturing, Battery Safety, Cyber Security, Smart Cabin, Autonomous Freight, Hydrogen Commercial Vehicles, Thermal Efficiency, Chip Localisation, and Overseas Compliance & Export. C-NCAP 2027 and China VI-b emission update drafts will be disclosed for the first time during the regulatory track.

Academic depth is provided by the China-SAE Congress, which brings together 1 200 engineers and 30 university labs to debate topics such as 10-minute fast-charge battery degradation, mixed-criticality middleware, and fusion of vision with 4D millimetre-wave radar. A start-up contest, “AutoTech DemoDay”, selects 50 early-stage companies to pitch in front of 150 venture-capital funds; the 2024 winner, Suzhou-based DeepRoute.ai, closed a USD 300 million Series B within three months of exhibiting.

Target audiences are R&D directors, procurement managers, software architects, pl