At the WAIC 2026 exhibition, ZTE Nubia, in collaboration with ByteDance, unveiled the second Doubao phone—the Nubia NaviX Ultra model. The device demonstrates capabilities for multi-task planning, a proactive memory system, and autonomous operation across various applications on more than ten platforms.
The NaviX Ultra is an evolution of the smartphone-agent concept, which was first introduced in late 2025 with the Nubia M153 Doubao phone. The development took eight months of joint work by the Nubia and ByteDance teams, during which four key challenges were addressed: translating user pain points, integrating agent functions into the phone's operating system, turning isolated successes into a stable experience, and most importantly, ensuring security and privacy.
Testing showed significant improvements. The NaviX Ultra features a redesigned horizontal large camera module, available in four color variants: blue, dreamy, black, and white. Its glass user interface integrates Doubao with other applications, allowing tasks to be orchestrated across different apps. During a live demonstration, when the user was asked to find a cat video on Douyin, the phone autonomously launched the application and provided results in approximately 30 seconds. While executing the task, the AI displayed visual animations showing the execution steps, reasoning processes, and real-time task progress.
Support for multitasking represents a significant step forward. The NaviX Ultra allows users to set multiple tasks simultaneously: for example, asking Doubao to find a video on Douyin, search for flights on Qunar, and order an iced Americano at Luckin Coffee. Tasks that cannot be executed immediately are automatically queued and processed sequentially. This queue-based autonomous execution model transforms the phone from a tool requiring constant user attention into an agent that independently handles lists of assignments in the background.
A key differentiator is the proactive memory. The phone learns user preferences by itself based on content saved in various applications and usage patterns, forming a personal memory system. This makes the phone's operation smarter and more responsive over time. Unlike early agent implementations, which required explicit commands for every action, the NaviX Ultra aims for anticipatory assistance, suggesting relevant actions based on context while using user data within a privacy-oriented architecture that preserves user ownership of the collected information.
Nubia President Ni Fei emphasized that the industry has reached a consensus regarding the category of agent smartphones, and competitors are beginning to enter this space. However, he warned that this is not merely a demonstration category. The four barriers identified during development—user problems, OS integration, scalability stability, and privacy—represent engineering complexities that distinguish production-ready products from conceptual demonstrations. By integrating with more than ten partner platforms, including Douyin, Luckin, Qunar, Meituan, and Didi, the NaviX Ultra positions the Doubao ecosystem as the most extensive agent smartphone platform capable of performing real tasks, rather than just demonstrating technical capabilities.
ZTE has once again won the WAIC SAIL Star award thanks to its OEX supernode, which features a zero-cable design, the ability to connect 128 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) in a single rack, and a comprehensive artificial intelligence infrastructure covering cloud supercomputers and Nubia agent phones.
The OEX supernode received the WAIC SAIL Star award for the second consecutive year. It solves the complex engineering challenge of connecting hundreds of GPUs at the scale of data centers while minimizing cable complexity, signal loss, and latency. Thanks to its orthogonal design, where computing racks and switching racks are connected vertically, the OEX supernode provides full interconnectivity for 128 GPUs in a standard rack without internal cables or a rear panel. This significantly reduces signal paths, lowers connection costs, and simplifies maintenance compared to traditional designs.
The architecture allows scaling up to 16,000 GPUs. ZTE developed proprietary chips for in-rack switching that simultaneously support the CLink protocol, overseen by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and Broadcom's SUE protocol. This ensures GPU compatibility independent of the specific chip supplier, preventing vendor lock-in. The five-chip co-probing technology, which includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU), internal server interconnect, inter-rack communication, network card, and DPU, allows the system to dynamically select optimal configurations for different types of GPUs and workloads, making the OEX supernode a flexible platform adaptable to the rapidly evolving domestic GPU ecosystem.
ZTE's exhibition at WAIC was divided into four zones: AI Infrastructure, AI Applications, AI Smart Home, and AI Agent Smartphone. These zones presented a unified concept of AI—from computational power generation to end-user consumption. The infrastructure zone showcased the OEX supernode alongside the AIDC computing power cooperation architecture and the computing network structure.
The applications zone demonstrated the NewStart AIOS operating system, designed for industrial, home, and personal scenarios, as well as the Co-Claw agent corporate platform. This platform is used internally by ZTE to build an AI-managed organization and is replicated for the industrial, railway, mining, metallurgical, and energy sectors.
In the smart home zone, ZTE's products for home terminals were displayed, maintaining global market leadership for five consecutive years with over 100 million annual shipments, including 3 million AI-enabled devices. The agent smartphone zone featured the Nubia NaviX Ultra—the world's first production-ready agent smartphone, developed in collaboration with Doubao from ByteDance, which debuted at WAIC. Ni Fei, President of Nubia at ZTE, emphasized that the agent phone category represents the lower half of AI, performing tasks rather than just answering questions, which requires thorough engineering verification of all user pain points, native OS integration, stable manufacturing experience, and privacy assurance.
In addition to the exhibition, ZTE announced achievements in medical AI: generating medical reports with a tenfold increase in efficiency, creating HTA reports in 1–5 minutes, and assisting in cardiovascular disease diagnosis with 96% accuracy based on 10,000 clinical cases. Three humanoid robots were also presented: Xingzai, weighing 30 kg for commercial services; the heavy-duty Xinqing for industrial manufacturing; and the wheeled Xinwang. All operate on the Star Core automotive chip with the dexterous Xingqiao hands, achieving precision below 0.2 mm.
