Shenzhen, is moving towards China's AI glasses first city
In the wave of science and technology, AI glasses have become a new industrial high ground for AI manufacturers and hardware enterprises to compete fiercely, and are expected to become the next super terminal after the smartphone. Recently, Huawei released a full range of new smart products, including smart glasses that attracted attention; Google will also show the prototype of AI glasses equipped with Gemini at the 2025 I/O conference; Meta plans to launch the first AI smart glasses with high-definition electronic screen “Hypernova” at the end of the year; the three major domestic operators have also announced that they will launch their own AI glasses within the year. Announced that each will launch AI glasses within the year. In this situation, shenzhen as China's scientific and technological innovation and intelligent hardware manufacturing key base, the development momentum in the field of AI glasses is extremely strong, is making every effort to China's AI glasses first city.
The development prospect of AI glasses is broad, and is rapidly evolving to the “intelligent entrance”. 2018 Turing Award winner Yang Likun pointed out that in the future, people may wear devices with built-in intelligent AI assistants, as if they had a “virtual staff team”. At present, AI glasses have integrated voice, image recognition, translation, shooting and other multimodal capabilities, which can realize first-perspective human-computer interaction, and users can use intelligent questions and answers, real-time translation and other functions. Relevant analysis shows that AI glasses products are superimposed from the basic hardware, to the direction of the development of intelligent assistance and intelligent assistant, the future is expected to become intelligent collaboration and computing terminal. In recent years, the domestic AI eyeglasses industry is developing at a high speed, technology iteration and market expansion synchronization, a number of head manufacturers of innovative technology leading the world. Such as the “invisible display” of the not-eye technology, Shenzhen Thunderbird innovation of the world's first market-oriented mass production and sale of binocular full-color display. Data show that the global AI glasses sales reached 1.52 million pairs in 2024, Wellsenn predicts that the global sales in 2025 is expected to reach 5.5 million pairs, a year-on-year growth of 135%, online sales in the Chinese market is expected to increase by 188.5% year-on-year, and the global market scale in 2030 is expected to reach 150 billion U.S. dollars.
Shenzhen has become the core position of global AI glasses innovation and development by virtue of the advantages of industrial clusters, rapid commercialization ability and policy support. Henggang Street, Longgang District, Shenzhen is the world's largest production base for medium- and high-end eyeglasses, with about 1,200 eyeglasses enterprises gathered in an area of less than 50 square kilometers, with an annual output of more than 125 million pairs of medium- and high-end eyeglasses, which accounts for 55% of the global market share, and it is the OEM base of many international brands, and it also gives birth to local innovative enterprises and forms a complete industrial chain. The eyewear industry here has the world's leading rapid commercialization ability, localized supply chain in-depth synergy, and many parts can be deployed within 24 hours. In addition, Shenzhen AI eyeglasses have significant advantages in technological innovation and cross-field integration. For example, the V3 shooting glasses released by Thunderbird Innovation are equipped with a self-developed AI model; the products of Flash Extreme Technology integrate a large model and lightweight design, and the pre-sale results are outstanding; the lenses launched by Yazhou Optics are combined with AI algorithms to adapt to different lighting scenarios; and the special AI chips developed by the United Nations chip makers of Shenzhen enterprises have lowered the power consumption and cost. Industry observers believe that the exploration of Shenzhen enterprises in the field of consumer-grade and industry-grade, the future or lead the interaction revolution, Goldman Sachs predicted that Shenzhen will contribute more than 70% of the hardware manufacturing capacity in the total global AI glasses shipments. Huaqiang North's innovation ecosystem will also provide affordable AI eyeglasses products for the world.
Shenzhen has greater ambitions for the development of the AI eyeglasses industry, not only limited to manufacturing. Shenzhen will be intelligent wearable into the “20 + 8” strategic emerging industry clusters, through a series of policies to promote industrial upgrading. 2014 - 2020, the cumulative investment of 3.5 billion yuan to set up the intelligent wearable industry fund, the independent innovation project to give a high amount of financial support; 2024, Longgang District, issued a new policy, to encourage cooperation between the traditional industry and intelligent technology enterprises, the launch of AI glasses products, and the development of AI glasses products. Science and technology enterprises to cooperate, and subsidize R&D investment for enterprises launching AI glasses. 2025, Shenzhen plans to release the “Smart Glasses Technical Standard System”, covering 12 core indicators; Yuanshan Street is constructing the “AI Smart Glasses Industry Town”, planning R&D centers and targeting incubation of unicorn enterprises.
Shenzhen has formed a closed loop in terms of “technology - manufacturing - market - policy”. Huawei, Tencent and other technology giants to provide the underlying technical support, Henggang supply chain to ensure rapid mass production, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay Area consumer market to help product iteration. Shenzhen has ascended to the main field of the global AI glasses competition, with the innovative
