Beijing, 22 September 2026 — The 10th edition of the PCHi Technology Summit concluded after two days of expert-led discussion, reaffirming its role as a platform for innovation and collaboration in the personal care and cosmetics industry. Held 12–13 August 2026 under the theme ‘Technology Beyond Boundaries · Value in Symbiosis‘, the Summit featured nearly 20 forums and drew over 2,000 professionals from across the supply chain, including R&D leaders, regulatory specialists, and brand innovators.
The Summit comes as China’s cosmetics industry marked a fifth consecutive year of growth in 2025, ending the year with 22,952 registered and filed cosmetics entities, according to the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control’s 2025 Annual Review Report on Cosmetics. Separately, according to CAFFCI, the industry recorded a third consecutive year of trillion-yuan revenue, reaffirming China’s status as the world’s largest cosmetics consumer market. Against this backdrop, demand is shifting toward evidence-based efficacy, a theme that ran through much of this year’s program.
Spotlight on Key Scientific Advances and Market Directions
This Summit’s theme—Technology Beyond Boundaries, Value in Symbiosis—captures the structural shift already underway: regulatory reform marking the end of a marketing-driven era, and AI reshaping the industry’s underlying mode of production rather than simply upgrading its tools. With consumers growing more ingredient-savvy and competition increasingly coming from cross-industry technology players, speakers at the Summit made the case for companies to invest seriously in fundamental research, ingredient innovation, and efficacy validation, rather than treating technological breakthroughs as a slogan.
That shift was grounded in a discussion of regulatory reform. Speakers from the Guangzhou Quality Testing & Inspection Institute outlined a series of adjustments designed to ease the path to market for new ingredients: a reduction in ingredient risk categories, simplified dossier and toxicology requirements, greater encouragement of alternative-testing methods, and new provisions for ingredient-change filings. Guangzhou has also introduced a subsidy for newly catalogued ingredients, underscoring the city’s push to accelerate local innovation. At the same time, representatives from international testing and certification bodies noted that compliance obligations abroad are rising in parallel, making regulatory readiness an increasingly strategic consideration for manufacturers selling into international markets.
Faster regulatory pathways were only part of the picture; the sessions that followed turned to where the underlying science itself is heading:
- Longevity and anti-aging research drew particular attention, with presentations spanning mitochondrial regulation, ginsenoside-based actives, and extracellular matrix repair;
- Synthetic biology was another focal point, with fermentation-based production cited as one alternative to extraction, alongside a look at this year’s top emerging active-ingredient trends from a leading multinational supplier;
- Artificial intelligence rounded out the conversation, as presenters demonstrated an AI-decoded skin database and an AI-driven aging-clock model, pointing to a more data-driven future for formulation science.
Threaded through these sessions was a broader move toward collaboration across the value chain, from closer ties between clinical research and product formulation to scenario-based innovation spanning scalp care to emotion-linked formulation — signals of where ingredient demand may shift next.
That same throughline carried into the Summit’s Fountain Awards 2026 Showcase, where ingredients were recognized for efficacy data over marketing claims. Winners took the stage to present their products and share the science behind them. An accompanying Innovation Exhibition, featuring more than 200 ingredients and testing providers, gave delegates a hands-on look at many of the ingredients and technologies discussed throughout the program.
Call for Speakers: PCHi Annual Industry Conference 2027
Looking ahead, Reed Sinopharm Exhibitions (RSE) has opened its Call for Speakers for the PCHi Annual Industry Conference 2027, which will be held alongside the exhibition in Guangzhou. Experts and professionals are invited to submit presentation proposals on ingredients and formulation innovation, emerging scientific research, and cross-disciplinary technologies. Interested speakers may submit their proposed topics and bios to Ms. Zoey Zhang at shuang.zhang@reedsinopharm.com by 10 October 2026.
Where Innovation and Opportunity Meet
PCHi 2027 will take place from 24–26 February 2027 at the China Import and Export Fair Complex, Guangzhou. Pre-registration is now open at PCHi Summit: https://bit.ly/PCHi2027PreReg and attendees who register in advance receive complimentary access and a smoother onsite experience.
Further updates on the event program and show features will be shared in the coming months. For more information, please visit www.pchi-china.com/en or connect with PCHi on social media.
