CSITF 2026 Technology Trade Fair

CSITF is positioned as a specialized fair created specifically for technology import and export, combining innovation showcases with practical technology trading services and structured cooperation formats. The organizer’s official description states that the event is approved at the State Council level, hosted by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, and supported by UNIDO, UNDP and WIPO, which underlines its institutional role in promoting cross-border technology transfer and commercialization. The fair is held annually and traces its launch to 2013, while the 12th session is scheduled for June 10–12, 2026 in Shanghai, with an announced exhibition scale of 35,000 square meters at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center. For exhibitors and professional visitors, this positioning typically translates into a “trade-first” event logic: not only product demonstrations, but also deal facilitation, service providers, and themed programming that helps convert innovation visibility into transaction-ready cooperation.

CSITF’s declared theme emphasizes an applied path from innovation to market outcomes, focusing on innovation-driven development, intellectual property protection, and the acceleration of technology trade. This framing is important for B2B participants because technology exhibitions often fail when they remain purely demonstrational; CSITF’s theme explicitly prioritizes transaction mechanisms, compliance and IP governance, which are decisive for international licensing, joint development, and technology procurement. In practice, this means that the event’s value is strongest for companies that can present not only prototypes, but also clear ownership structures, documentation, validation evidence and commercialization models. For buyers and investors, the theme acts as a filter that improves the quality of discussions: supplier selection can be anchored in IP clarity, transferability and implementation feasibility, rather than marketing narratives.

CSITF is described as a fair that links the core actors of technology trading, bringing together businesses, academia and government to accelerate applied cooperation and market adoption of innovations. The event concept also highlights dedicated guest-city mechanisms and regional cooperation showcases, which are designed to concentrate municipal and regional innovation agendas into a structured exhibition and matchmaking environment. Alongside technology developers and manufacturers, the fair’s format is oriented toward service institutions that directly enable transactions, including technology transfer platforms and professional providers around IP and compliance, helping participants move from “interest” to “terms” with less friction. For international exhibitors, the relevance is straightforward: a venue where city-level delegations, industrial buyers and service intermediaries converge increases the probability of turning technical conversations into pilot projects, licensing discussions or supply-chain integration within the same event window.

The official overview of the 12th CSITF outlines a multi-zone structure that reflects how technology trade is executed across industries, rather than isolating a single vertical sector. The fair is stated to include professional zones such as commercial cryptography and digital intelligent manufacturing, green energy and storage and logistics, intelligent marine engineering and equipment, and consumer and commercial technologies, complemented by broader theme pavilions and regional achievement areas. The exhibitor and registration materials also show an extended taxonomy that includes IP services, technology transaction services, Yangtze River Delta integration themes, future health, human resources services and additional public-sector participation categories, which indicates a deliberate effort to combine “hard tech” demonstrations with the transactional infrastructure required to validate, protect and transfer technologies. For procurement teams, this structure supports a practical sourcing workflow: identify applicable technologies in sector zones, then immediately engage the relevant service providers for IP, verification, contracting and cross-border execution pathways.

CSITF 2026 is listed to take place at Shanghai World Expo Exhibition & Convention Center, one of Shanghai’s established exhibition venues for large-scale professional events. The official event information specifies the venue address as No. 850, Bocheng Road, Pudong New District, which is useful for travel planning, freight coordination and scheduling on-site business meetings with time buffers that match Shanghai traffic patterns. From an exhibitor perspective, the venue’s suitability is tied to operational predictability: clear loading and logistics access, stable hall layouts, and the ability to host concurrent forums and services in the same complex. For visitors, venue clarity reduces coordination costs and helps teams build a disciplined agenda across supplier meetings, thematic halls and transaction-service consultations within the limited three-day exhibition window.

CSITF is officially described as being hosted by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government and supported by UNIDO, UNDP and WIPO, which signals that the fair is designed not only as a commercial exhibition but also as a governance-aligned platform for international technology cooperation. The event’s organization structure, as presented in official materials, references specialized bodies involved in technology import-export promotion, sector associations and large exhibition-service groups, reinforcing CSITF’s “transaction enablement” orientation. This matters for participants because technology trading requires more than exposure: it needs matchmaking, IP and compliance channels, and a credible institutional environment that reduces counterparty risk for cross-border cooperation. For exhibitors planning ROI, the most effective approach is typically to prepare market-ready packages: clear use cases, IP ownership and licensing stance, validation evidence, and a defined cooperation ask (distribution, joint development, procurement, or investment), so organizer-provided trade-promotion activities can translate into measurable outcomes.