Seven Industry-First Technology Covers Debut at Beijing’s 28-Year-Old Tech Expo

As the 28th China Beijing International High-Tech Expo drew more than 800 exhibitors to the capital on May 8, a side event at PICC Property and Casualty quietly issued seven insurance policy forms that had never been written before.

The products, launched under the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Technology Insurance Coordinated Development banner, trace the full lifecycle of innovation — from laboratory failure to factory-floor wear.

1.Semiconductors. The set-piece was a wafer tape-out policy that covers not only physical damage during manufacturing but, critically, financial loss when a chip design emerges from the foundry and simply does not work. The premium can be offset through Haidian District’s technology insurance subsidy scheme.

2.R&D cost compensation. A second product abandons the traditional requirement that R&D be terminated before a claim can be made. It pays for cost overruns caused by accidents or equipment failure while development continues — a structure built for iteration, not post-mortems.

3.Low-altitude and robotics. PICC and eVTOL manufacturer AutoFlight unveiled an “AF Care+” plan bundling insurance with full-lifecycle technical support. For robots — where over 10,000 units already sit on PICC’s books with more than RMB 200 million in cover — two products fill gaps: an extended warranty for post-manufacturer periods, and “Smart Lease Protection” for rental fleets, bundling collision, electrical, cybersecurity and post-warranty risk.

4.Space. The Beijing Commercial Space Co-insurance Community disclosed first-year figures: nearly RMB 10.3 billion in risk underwritten for 10 companies across 25 launches, with placement time cut by a fifth.

5.Additional outputs — a flood-risk monitoring system for Beijing's underground spaces and a battery degradation model for new-energy vehicles — were presented without detail.

CHITEC, founded in 1998 and long a fixture on Beijing's technology calendar, has hosted more than 1,000 overseas delegations and witnessed over RMB 1 trillion in contracts and agreements signed across its editions. This year’s insurance side event, however, marked a quieter milestone: the moment a non-life insurer began to price, not just the hardware of industry, but the risk that the hardware might never work.