IFA Berlin 2026 opened this morning at Messe Berlin, beginning five days of product launches, keynote speeches and industry deals through September 8. But the 102nd edition of the world's largest consumer electronics trade show had already made its most significant statement before the first product was switched on: for the first time in 35 years, Samsung is absent from the main floor and Xiaomi has taken its place.

AMD Senior Vice President Jack Huynh opened the show with a keynote titled "The Era of Personal AI: The Future of Imagination". He argued that AI systems are becoming sufficiently personal to adapt to individual users rather than treating everyone alike. Xiaomi, meanwhile, has built the show's largest physical presence, occupying 3,300 square metres in Hall 6.2 with more than 380 products connected through its HyperOS platform. The Galaxy S26 FE also went on sale today, starting at $699.

Samsung's strategic retreat — and what it means

Samsung has ended its 35-year presence as an anchor exhibitor at Messe Berlin. Instead, it is holding its own event at the Humboldt Carré Conference venue in central Berlin, 8 kilometres from the exhibition grounds, beginning September 2 — two days before the official show opened. The format brings media briefings, retail meetings and product launches together in a controlled setting, following the approach Samsung used at CES 2026 when it moved from the Las Vegas Convention Center to the Wynn Hotel.

Samsung says the move will provide a focused environment for hands-on demonstrations. IFA CEO Leif Lindner called it "a compromise" — the best available option rather than an ideal outcome. Euronics executive Benedict Kober was more critical, saying he had warned Samsung that the move would damage its retail relationships because retailers would not leave the fairgrounds to travel to Samsung's venue and return.

Samsung still has a presence inside Messe Berlin as the main sponsor of the IFA Creator Hub at the Palais am Funkturm. Sponsorship, however, is different from anchoring the show floor. Products being showcased at Humboldt Carré include the world's first 1,100Hz gaming monitor, the Odyssey G6, and an AI washing machine that recognises more than 3,000 product types.

Xiaomi steps in, with a legal caveat for European consumers

Xiaomi is appearing at IFA 2026 as a full exhibitor for the first time, taking centre-stage space in the hall vacated by Samsung. Its "Human × Car × Home" strategy covers smartphones, electric vehicles, smart-home appliances and HyperOS, which connects 1.16 billion devices worldwide. Xiaomi has announced a €7.4 billion, or about US$8.6 billion, commitment to AI research and development from 2026 to 2028, covering electric vehicles, robotics and its operating system.

HyperOS runs on Linux and Xiaomi's self-developed Vela internet-of-things layer. Its HyperConnect framework enables real-time networking across the ecosystem, allowing phones, cars and home appliances to share a unified session and AI layer called HyperMind. More than 5,000 engineers worked on the operating system, which Xiaomi has used to expand into more than 200 product categories. The European showcase includes the Xiaomi 18 Fold, a cherry-red widescreen foldable phone with the company's next-generation 3nm XRing O3 processor, as well as the SU7 Ultra and SU7 Max electric sedans, making their physical European debut. Xiaomi's automotive division has delivered more than 650,000 vehicles in China since March 2024 and plans to begin selling cars in Germany and elsewhere in Europe by 2027.

What the "Human × Car × Home" pitch does not advertise: Xiaomi is headquartered in Beijing and is subject to Article 7 of China's 2017 National Intelligence Law, which requires every organisation operating in China to "support, cooperate with and collaborate in national intelligence work". China's 2021 Data Security Law and 2017 Cybersecurity Law add data-localisation and government-access requirements.

Belgium's State Security service told independent investigators that "every Chinese company, including Xiaomi, has to share data with the government when asked to do so". The Chinese Communist Party also maintains party committees inside companies of Xiaomi's size, providing an additional institutional channel beyond the legal requirement.

In 2021, Lithuania's National Cyber Security Centre reported that the Xiaomi Mi 10T contained a censorship function capable of filtering 449 terms, including "Free Tibet", "Democratic Movement" and "Long live Taiwan's independence". The function was disabled on phones sold in the European Union, but the Lithuanian government said Xiaomi could activate it remotely at any time. Taiwan's National Communications Commission independently verified the findings in January 2022, while members of the European Parliament sent a formal letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seeking an EU-level response.

Xiaomi has denied censoring user communications and says it complies with European regulations. Its privacy policy applies to data stored outside China. China's National Intelligence Law, however, applies regardless of where data is stored or what a company's privacy policy says. The obligation is structural rather than optional.

Consumers considering Xiaomi's connected-home ecosystem can reduce exposure by placing Xiaomi devices on a separate Wi-Fi network, restricting Xiaomi account sign-ins where possible and reviewing app permissions. No such measure fully addresses the structural legal risk created by Chinese law.

AMD keynote: why 192GB of unified memory matters

AMD's opening keynote focused on the Ryzen AI Max Pro 400 series, which the company describes as the first x86 processor family capable of running 300-billion-parameter AI models locally without a cloud connection. The flagship Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 has 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, 40 RDNA 3.5 graphics compute units and an XDNA 2 neural-processing unit capable of 55 TOPS, or trillion operations per second.

The most important figure for professional users is memory. The Max Pro 400 series supports up to 192GB of unified memory, with as much as 160GB available as VRAM for graphics and AI workloads. The previous Max Pro 300 series supported up to 128GB. The increase matters because running large language models is fundamentally a memory-bandwidth challenge: the larger the model, the more memory it needs to operate without being split across devices or sent to the cloud. With 192GB, the Max Pro 400 brings models that previously required server hardware to laptops and compact desktops. Nvidia's dedicated DGX Spark AI development system, by comparison, offers 128GB of unified memory.

According to AMD's specifications, the new chips also deliver a 50% improvement in large-language-model throughput over the Max Pro 300 series. The processors are shipping in the third quarter of 2026, with IFA providing a natural platform for retail availability announcements.

IFA 2026 by the numbers

More than 1,900 exhibitors from 49 countries are occupying 27 halls at Messe Berlin, with about 220,000 visitors expected during the five-day event. The 2026 theme is "The Future Is Now". Around 932 exhibitors are Chinese companies, close to half the total. The programme includes 270 speakers across 125 sessions and five content tracks: World of AI and Future of Tech; Retail and Future of Commerce; Smart and Sustainable Living; Marketing and Creativity; and Culture and Lifestyle.

The IFA Next area features about 300 exhibitors focused on hardware start-ups, robotics, AI wearables, smart glasses and PetTech. German Federal Digital Minister Dorothee Bär is patron of IFA Next and will deliver the Innovation Stage policy keynote at noon with Miele Executive Director Dr Reinhard Christian Zinkann on Germany's digital transformation agenda.

The robotics line-up is dominated by Chinese companies including Unitree, Agibot, DEEP Robotics, EngineAI, Dobot, Cozio Robotics, Primebot and AIMOGA, alongside Germany's NEURA Robotics.

Saturday: humanoid robots take the catwalk as Europe's largest robotics round takes the stage

Saturday, September 5, will feature two of the show's most anticipated events. At 12:45pm Berlin time, or 6:45am Eastern Time, the Creator Stage will host "Robots on Runway", with humanoid robots from Unitree, Agibot, DEEP Robotics, EngineAI, Dobot and others walking a catwalk.

At the same time, technology analyst Sascha Pallenberg will appear on the Dream Stage for "The Humanoid Hype: Substance or Spectacle?". The session reflects IFA's view that enthusiasm and scepticism about humanoid robots are equally present and deserve equal attention.

At 2:30pm Berlin time on Saturday, NEURA Robotics CEO David Reger will take the Innovation Stage for a keynote titled "From Europe, for the World: Building the Ecosystem for Physical AI". His appearance follows NEURA's US$1.4 billion Series C funding round, completed in June 2026 and described as the largest ever raised by a full-stack robotics company. The round was backed by Tether, Qualcomm, Amazon, NVIDIA, Bosch, Schaeffler and the European Investment Bank. Reger has said Europe's engineering expertise, AI capabilities and responsible-development standards position NEURA to compete directly with US and Chinese robotics companies. The company's order backlog already exceeds US$1 billion, and it is targeting mass production of millions of robots by 2030.

Opening-day programme

Trade visitors entered from 9:30am Berlin time, while the show opened to the general public at noon. Key sessions scheduled for the afternoon include:

12:00pm — Innovation Stage: "Digital Policy Put to the Test" German Federal Digital Minister Dorothee Bär and Miele's Dr Reinhard Christian Zinkann will discuss Germany's innovation and competitiveness agenda, moderated by television journalist Pinar Atalay. The session will be in German.

12:00pm — Retail Innovation Zone Stage: "The Algorithmic Shopper" Paul Accornero of The AI Praxis will examine what changes when an AI agent, rather than a person, does the shopping, including a live brand-visibility audit for retailers.

1:00pm — Creator Stage: Peloton Chief Content Officer Sarah Robb O'Hagan, Chief Product Officer Nick Caldwell and instructor Matt Wilpers will argue that Peloton is evolving from a hardware maker into a connected wellness platform.

2:30pm — Innovation Stage: IFA Innovation Awards Ceremony An independent international jury will recognise excellence in engineering, design and innovation. Awards will include Best of IFA, Best Tech Innovation and Best Brand.

4:30pm — Dream Stage: IFA Next Pitch Battle semifinals, round one The first round of the start-up hardware semifinals will take place today. Round two is scheduled for Saturday, with the final on Sunday, September 6, at 5:00pm Berlin time on the Dream Stage.

The Retail Innovation Zone and the commerce pivot

A new Retail Innovation Zone will run throughout all five days, examining how consumer electronics brands must rethink their routes to market as AI agents increasingly influence product discovery. TikTok Shop's Moses Tan opened the zone this morning for trade visitors, arguing that consumer electronics brands should now treat TikTok Shop as a primary sales channel. The session will be repeated for the general public on Saturday. AliExpress Global Vice President Eric Zhang will deliver a keynote on the "Brand+" ecosystem for expanding brands into new markets.

The zone reflects IFA's broader shift from a product showcase towards a hub for commerce and retail intelligence. The change is being driven partly by the growing involvement of Chinese platform companies such as TikTok, AliExpress and Xiaomi, all using Berlin to present their ambitions for the European market.

What it all means

At IFA, artificial intelligence is no longer being presented simply as a product feature or category. It has become the connective layer running through the entire show — from Xiaomi's HyperOS-based home-appliance ecosystem and AMD's on-device language-model processors to NEURA's physical AI robots and sessions on AI-mediated retail.

Samsung's absence from the main floor and Xiaomi's confident debut represent two sides of the same shift. Samsung is betting that a controlled, media-focused environment will deliver better results than competing for attention in a hall now anchored by Xiaomi. Xiaomi is betting that a strong physical presence will translate into influence in the European market it plans to enter with vehicles by 2027.

What neither company's marketing material states directly is that consumers adopting Xiaomi's connected-home ecosystem are adopting a platform operated by a company subject to Chinese laws requiring cooperation with government intelligence requests. European government investigators have also previously found dormant content-filtering capabilities in Xiaomi devices. The IFA floor presents a straightforward market contest; the legal framework behind it is more complicated.

IFA 2026 runs through September 8 at Messe Berlin, Messedamm 22, 14055 Berlin. Trade visitor hours are 9:30am to 6:00pm daily. Public hours are noon to 6:00pm today and 10:00am to 6:00pm from Saturday through Tuesday.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Samsung leave IFA Berlin's main floor?

Samsung ended its 35-year presence at Messe Berlin's CityCube in favour of a private event at the Humboldt Carré Conference centre, 8 kilometres from the show grounds. The company used a similar strategy at CES 2026, moving from the Las Vegas Convention Center to the Wynn Hotel. The approach brings product demonstrations, retail briefings and media access together in a controlled setting rather than competing for attention with more than 1,900 exhibitors. IFA CEO Leif Lindner called the decision "a compromise". Samsung remains the official sponsor of IFA's Creator Hub.

Is Xiaomi safe to use in Europe given its Chinese ownership?

The concern is legal, not merely reputational. Article 7 of China's 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese organisations to cooperate with state intelligence work when requested. The 2021 Data Security Law adds data-localisation and government-access provisions. These obligations apply to Xiaomi regardless of its privacy policy, its compliance with EU rules or where its servers are located. Belgium's State Security service has confirmed the obligation, while Lithuania's National Cyber Security Centre found dormant censorship capabilities in Xiaomi devices in 2021 that could be activated remotely. European consumers considering Xiaomi's "Human × Car × Home" ecosystem should understand that the platform connecting their home, phone and vehicle operates under these legal conditions.

What is AMD announcing at IFA 2026, and why does it matter?

AMD's opening keynote focused on the Ryzen AI Max Pro 400 series, which supports up to 192GB of unified memory and is described as the first x86 processor family capable of running 300-billion-parameter AI models locally. Its XDNA 2 neural-processing unit delivers up to 55 TOPS, while the unified memory pool allows as much as 160GB to be used as graphics memory. This enables laptop and compact-desktop users to run AI workloads that previously required dedicated servers. The chips are shipping in the third quarter of 2026.

What is the IFA Next Pitch Battle, and when is the final?

IFA Next is the show's start-up and hardware innovation area, with about 300 exhibitors working in robotics, AI wearables, smart glasses, PetTech and smart living. The IFA Next Pitch Battle is a multi-round competition organised with the German Startup Association, in which selected hardware start-ups present new technologies to expert judges. The semifinals are taking place today, September 4, and tomorrow, September 5, on the Dream Stage. The final is scheduled for Sunday, September 6, at 5:00pm Berlin time, with the winning start-up receiving the IFA Next top prize.

Originally published on Tech Times