The 23^rd China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy 2026) officially opened at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre on July 31st. Walking through the exhibition halls, one striking shift was immediately apparent. AI, once little more than a concept added to gaming products, had become the central narrative at most booths this year. AI-native games were also repeatedly highlighted at the China Digital Entertainment Congress.

As long lines formed outside the Tencent Games and Huawei HarmonyOS gaming ecosystem exhibition areas, a more important question emerged beyond the headline figures: with AI becoming the gaming industry's "second growth curve," how can Guangdong, which accounts for more than 80% of China's gaming revenue, evolve from a major gaming industry province into an AI gaming industry powerhouse?

According to the "2026 Report on AI Development in China's Game Industry," Guangdong's gaming industry generated 260.431 billion yuan in revenue in 2024, representing more than 80% of the national total. In other words, for every 10 yuan generated by China's gaming industry, more than eight yuan came from Guangdong. Such a high level of industrial concentration gives the province a natural advantage as a testing ground for new technologies and business models.

AI's monetization potential has already been demonstrated to some extent in leading games. In Guangdong, both competitive games such as "Honor of Kings" and "Peacekeeper Elite" and high-quality original games such as "Where Winds Meet" and "NARAKA: BLADEPOINT" have deployed AI at scale in areas including AI-assisted game development, AI-powered non-player characters and personalized content recommendations. From foundational AI capabilities and infrastructure, such as Tencent Hunyuan and Huawei Cloud, to products serving more than 100 million users and companies spanning the entire industrial chain of game development, operations and publishing, Guangdong has built a complete industrial ecosystem.

Behind the excitement surrounding the "AI narrative," however, concerns within the industry are also coming to the surface. The report found that 72.7% of surveyed companies faced a shortage of cross-disciplinary professionals with expertise in both AI and game design. Meanwhile, 81.8% of industry practitioners said that inconsistent output quality remained the main obstacle to the direct application of AI-generated content.

In 2025, Guangdong introduced policies identifying the training of large AI models for gaming and improvements in computing efficiency as priority areas of support. High-quality projects are eligible for one-off subsidies of up to 5 million yuan. Shenzhen also issued a three-year action plan aimed at establishing itself as "China's leading city for the global expansion of games," encouraging the wider use of AI, AR, and VR in esports and event operations.

The projected additional market of 53.3 billion to 84.6 billion yuan represents new growth potential for China as a whole, but for Guangdong, it is also a responsibility the province must shoulder. As AI evolves from an auxiliary tool into a shared productivity platform, competition in the gaming industry is shifting from a model in which "content is king" to one driven jointly by content and technology.

At a critical moment when AI is reshaping the boundaries of gaming, Guangdong possesses China's strongest industrial foundation. Its challenge is no longer simply to catch up technologically, but to convert its advantage in scale into standard-setting power and ecosystem leadership in the AI era. This concerns not only the path of transformation for a single industry, but also the substance of Guangdong's ambition to become a digital cultural powerhouse.

拿下近8成份额后，“游戏大省”广东转身“AI游戏强省”

7月31日，第二十三届ChinaJoy在上海新国际博览中心正式开幕。穿梭于各大展馆，一个显著的感知变化是：过往点缀在游戏产品中的“AI概念”，今年成为了大多数展台的“叙事主体”。与此同时，在CDEC高峰论坛上，AI原生游戏被高频提及。

当腾讯、华为游戏生态区的展位前大排长龙时，比数字本身更值得追问的是：当AI成为游戏产业的“第二增长曲线”，占全国游戏营收超80%的广东，如何从“游戏大省”跃升为“AI游戏强省”？

《2026中国游戏产业AI发展报告》数据显示，2024年广东游戏产业营收规模达2604.31亿元，全国占比超过80%。也就是全国每产生10元游戏收入，超过8元来自广东。如此高的集中度，赋予了广东天然的“试验田”优势。

事实上，AI在头部产品的变现能力已得到初步验证。在广东，无论是以《王者荣耀》《和平精英》为代表的竞技游戏，还是以《燕云十六声》《永劫无间》为代表的原创精品，都已在AI辅助研发、AI智能NPC、个性化内容推荐等领域开展了规模化落地。从底层算力（如腾讯混元、华为云）到应用场景（亿级用户产品），再到研运发全链条企业，广东拥有完整的产业闭环。

在热闹的“AI故事”背后，产业的隐忧同样浮出水面。报告显示，72.7%的受访企业面临既懂AI、又懂游戏设计的复合型人才短缺问题；81.8%的从业者认为生成结果质量不稳定，仍是AI内容直接落地的核心障碍。

2025年，广东出台政策明确重点支持游戏大模型训练、算力效率提升等领域，对优质项目给予最高500万元一次性扶持奖励。深圳更印发《三年行动计划》，明确打造“中国游戏出海第一城”，并鼓励AI、AR、VR在赛事运营中的广泛应用。

533亿至846亿元的新增空间，对全国是增量预期，对广东则是“责任田”。当AI从“辅助工具”升级为“生产力中台”，游戏产业的竞争逻辑正在从“内容为王”转向“内容+技术双轮驱动”。

在AI重构游戏边界的窗口期，广东手握全国最厚的产业家底，其面临的挑战已不是简单的技术追赶，而是如何将规模优势转化为AI时代的标准制定权和生态主导权。这不仅关乎一个产业的升级路径，更关乎“数字文化强省”的建设成色。

文、图丨记者 杭莹
译 | 郑奕玲
审 | 曾敏