Chinese Firms Add Suppliers as AI Takes the Growth Brief

A DP World survey of 292 Chinese supply-chain executives found 58% plan to add suppliers in 2026, while 50% name deploying AI as a top growth driver. The China cut of the Global Trade Observatory, released in Shanghai on 2 July 2026, also put digitalisation at 44% and demand from new markets at 43%.

Those ticks look like a growth story. They also add nodes: more vendors, more routes, more filings, more places a box can stall. Glen Hilton, DP World’s Asia Pacific chief executive, said the value shows up only when a firm can see cargo, switch routes, clear borders and finish the last mile.

What the 292 Executives Ticked for 2026

The fieldwork sat inside a larger poll. Geneva-based Horizon Group surveyed more than 3,500 senior supply-chain and logistics executives across 19 countries and eight industries in November 2025. The China slice is 292 people. Questions were multi-select, so shares run past 100% and figures are rounded.

How are China's supply chain and logistics leaders responding to an increasingly complex global trade environment?

The latest DP World Global Trade Observatory reveals how Chinese executives are preparing for growth despite ongoing disruption.

– 58% plan to diversify suppliers… pic.twitter.com/qlAl1uj560

— DP World (@DP_World) July 2, 2026

On the parent survey page, supplier diversification was the leading response for 2026, chosen by 51% of the world sample. In China it was 58%. Chinese leaders also lean harder on AI as a growth tool (50% against 43% globally) and report less policy fear (42% call uncertainty high, against 53% worldwide).

CHINA CUT VERSUS THE WORLD SAMPLE

The China Country Report 2026, the local write-up of the same poll, says 43% of the China group expect trade growth to speed up in 2026 and 50% expect it to match 2025, or 93% in all. The world sample is 54% faster and 40% the same, or 94%. The mood is close. The operating plan is not. Chinese firms are stacking vendors faster than the rest of the panel, and they put AI above new markets, which still lead the global list at 46%.

Four Moves on the 2026 Board

When the China group named strategic changes for 2026, adding suppliers sat first. The rest of the board is a map with more edges, not a leaner one. Near-shoring, friend-shoring and extra stock all cost money the old scale model used to claw back.

THE CHINA 2026 OPERATIONS LIST

• More suppliers: 58% plan to raise the vendor count and spread sourcing.
• Near-shoring: 38% plan to pull work closer to the end market.
• Friend-shoring: 36% plan to shift work toward political allies.
• Higher inventories: 32% plan to hold more stock as a buffer.

The release says the motives are mixed: ESG rules, new tools that let a network change shape, a hunt for agility, local incentives, tariffs, and new-market entry. In the world sample, the top reason given for spreading supply was new-market entry at 16%, then new technology at 15% and agility at 14%. Defence is on the form. So is offence. Either way, the factory floor gets more counterparties.

The China report adds a political read on tariffs that the growth headlines skip. 35% of the China group said changes in tariffs and non-tariff barriers would help their businesses. 26% said the same changes would hurt. A rule that closes one door is, for a large minority, a reason to open three others.

Customs Stops Multiply With Every New Route

Each extra supplier is another origin, another invoice, another border. The parent Observatory asked where cargo actually sticks. Every executive in the world sample put customs among the top three causes of delay. 60% named it the leading one. Warehousing and logistics hubs were the top infrastructure ask, at 39%.

WHERE THE NETWORK SNAGS

• Customs: Named by every surveyed executive as a top-three delay, and by 60% as the main one.
• Warehouses: 39% put warehousing and logistics hubs first among infrastructure needs.
• Finance gap: 50% of the China group said trade finance was easy to get on fair terms, against 39% globally.
• Trade volume: The IMF’s July 2026 update put world trade volume growth of 3.5 percent for 2026, down from 5.0 percent in 2025.

That IMF path is slower than the executives’ own 2026 bets. It still leaves a lot of boxes in motion. A firm that adds vendors and corridors while the paperwork layer stays slow is buying optionality with friction. Software is how they hope to watch the extra moving parts. Ports, yards and bonded sheds are how they hope to park them.

DP World’s own China page is written for that pile-up. It lists four key ports in China plus a claim of 305 logistics offices worldwide, and it sells ocean, air, road, rail, warehousing, customs and freight as one stack. The company says it handles around 10% of global containerised trade. Hilton’s pitch in July was that customers want one operator for the physical and digital layers, not a string of separate vendors. The survey makes that pitch easier to file.

Deploying AI Beats New Markets at Home

On a one-to-three-year growth list, the China group put deploying AI at 50%, ahead of wider digitalisation at 44%, new markets at 43% and new value chains at 34%. The world sample still leads with new markets at 46%, then AI at 43% and better transport capacity at 42%. China is the market where the control layer outranks the new customer.

That ranking matches the script Beijing has been reciting. The 2026 Two Sessions put industrial upgrading, technology breakthroughs and AI at the front of the next five-year plan, under the banner of new quality productive forces as a growth strategy. The Observatory release itself tied the 50% AI score to that line. The tool the executives say they will buy is the tool the state has already named.

China’s next trade advantage will come from resilience and adaptability, not just scale. Chinese companies are already diversifying suppliers, entering new corridors and investing in digital systems and AI. But that ambition creates most value when companies can see their cargo, switch between routes, clear borders, manage documentation and fulfil reliably across markets. What customers increasingly need is not a disconnected set of providers. They need an operating partner that can connect the physical and digital layers of trade.

Glen Hilton, CEO and Managing Director, Asia Pacific, DP World

AI here is not a chatbot demo. It is a bet that a firm can watch more purchase orders, more bills of lading and more exception alerts than a lean China-only network ever required. The 58% who are adding suppliers are the reason the 50% who want AI have a job for it.

Mexico and Vietnam Still Carry Chinese Content

New markets and new value chains, the 43% and 34% scores, are often sold as an exit from old routes. Customs data on the US side show a different picture. In an August 2026 Peterson Institute policy brief, Mary E. Lovely, a senior fellow, and Christine Y. Wan, a research analyst, tracked Chinese value added through third countries rather than the last port on the bill of lading.

Direct Chinese goods fell as a share of US imports by about 7 percentage points to 11% from 2017 through 2024, and to 9% by the end of 2025. US imports from China dropped more than a quarter in 2025. China’s share of US goods imports had been 22% in 2017. The combined direct and indirect Chinese content in a broader import measure fell only 2 percentage points over the same 2017-2024 span. Mexico carried about 23% of the indirect Chinese value added. Vietnam’s share of that indirect flow rose from about 7% to 15%.

A laptop booked as Vietnamese can still be majority Chinese in parts. A plant in Monterrey can still run on Chinese components, tooling and machines. Friend-shoring and near-shoring, the 36% and 38% China scores, can move the last assembly step without moving the risk. The extra corridor is real. So is the extra document trail that follows Chinese inputs into the new address.

The China Country Report 2026 already treats the US as a smaller slice of the home story. Direct exports to the United States, it says, now account for less than 3% of China’s GDP, against more than 6% a decade earlier. That is a genuine shift in the mix. It is not the same as stripping Chinese content out of goods that still end up in North America.

Beijing Already Wrote the Same Script

South-South corridors are the other outlet the China report names, with ASEAN and Africa on the list. DP World’s parks-and-zones arm has been catching some of that overflow in Dubai. Abdulla Al Hashmi, chief operating officer of parks and zones for DP World in the GCC, said Jebel Ali Free Zone hosted 507 Chinese companies as of November 2025, nearly double the 2021 count. The zone’s own 40th-anniversary note in May 2025 put trade at $190 billion over the prior 12 months, up 15%, across more than 11,000 firms. Chinese cargo that used to sail straight west can now pause, add value, and leave again under a different stamp.

On 13 September 2026 in New Delhi, President Xi Jinping told the BRICS summit that the grouping should keep industrial and supply chains stable and unimpeded. He offered a China-led open-source AI community, a digital cloud platform, and help for fellow members to build smart factories and shared standards. The survey’s 50% AI score and 58% supplier score sit inside that larger push: keep the chain moving, spread the work, and put Chinese tools on the new nodes.

FROM THE POLL TO THE PODIUM

1. November 2025: Horizon Group fields the Global Trade Observatory survey, including 292 China-based supply-chain and logistics executives.
2. January 20, 2026: DP World publishes the global outlook around the Davos meetings, with 51% of the world sample planning supplier diversification.
3. July 2, 2026: The China country cut is issued in Shanghai, with 58% adding suppliers and 50% naming AI.
4. September 13, 2026: Xi, in New Delhi, ties BRICS work to stable supply chains, open AI cooperation and smart factories.

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, then DP World’s group chairman and chief executive, said in the January outlook that global trade is becoming more complex, not less. The China numbers from July are that sentence in a spreadsheet. More suppliers, more corridors, more software. The growth brief and the operations brief are the same pile of extra hand-offs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Ran DP World’s China Supply-Chain Survey?

Horizon Group, a Geneva insights firm, ran the fieldwork in November 2025 for DP World’s Global Trade Observatory. The full panel was more than 3,500 senior supply-chain and logistics executives in 19 countries and eight industries. The China country report is the 292-person slice of that panel, with rounded, multi-select percentages.

What Does Friend-Shoring Mean in This Survey?

Friend-shoring, as used in the China cut, means moving work toward countries seen as political allies rather than toward the nearest factory. 36% of the 292 China-based executives named it as a 2026 change, just behind near-shoring at 38%, which is a geography bet rather than an alliance bet.

How Much of China’s GDP Still Comes From Direct US Exports?

The China Country Report 2026 says direct exports to the United States now account for less than 3% of China’s GDP, compared with more than 6% a decade earlier. That figure is about direct bilateral shipments, not about Chinese parts inside goods assembled in Mexico or Vietnam.

Do Chinese Executives Have an Easier Time Getting Trade Finance?

In the China cut, about 50% of executives said trade finance was readily available on reasonable terms, against a global average of 39% in the same Observatory survey. The report presents that gap as extra room for exporters to fund longer, more split routes.