📍 Overview
The National Conference on Man-Machine Speech Communication (NCMMSC) is one of the most influential academic conferences in speech science and speech technology in China. Since its inception in 1990, NCMMSC has continuously served as a premier forum for researchers and practitioners from academia and industry, promoting scientific exchange, technological innovation, and real-world applications in speech and language technologies.
The 21st National Conference on Man-Machine Speech Communication (NCMMSC 2026) will be held on November 5–8, 2026 at Tianmu Melody Convention and Exhibition Center, Hengqin, Zhuhai, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, China. NCMMSC 2026 marks the conference's return to the Greater Bay Area after nearly two decades, leveraging Hengqin's strategic location adjacent to Macao and its strong international connectivity to further strengthen global collaboration and industry-academia partnerships.
The year 2026 also represents a significant milestone for NCMMSC. The conference has been officially included in the China Computer Federation (CCF) Recommended Conference List (Class C), reflecting broad recognition of its academic impact, organizational quality, and research excellence. NCMMSC 2026 is jointly organized by the China Computer Federation (CCF) and the Chinese Information Processing Society of China (CIPS), and hosted by the CCF Technical Committee on Speech Dialogue and Auditory Processing, the CIPS Technical Committee on Speech Information, together with collaborating institutions.
In addition, NCMMSC 2026 will be co-located with NLPCC and AACL, creating a unified ecosystem for speech, language, and multimodal intelligence, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration and strengthening international engagement.
🎯 Theme
Speech × Language × Multimodality: Towards a New Paradigm of Intelligent Interaction
Driven by recent advances in large-scale AI models, speech technologies, natural language processing, and multimodal intelligence are increasingly converging. NCMMSC 2026 will focus on emerging research directions including speech foundation models and large models, multimodal interaction, affective and cognitive computing, AI for healthcare, and accessibility and inclusive intelligence. The conference aims to advance speech technologies from perception and generation toward cognitive understanding and intelligent interaction.
🧭 Topics of Interest
NCMMSC 2026 invites original research contributions in either English or Chinese. Topics include, but are not limited to:
1. Speech Science and Linguistics
Speech production, perception, and cognitive mechanisms; Phonetics, phonology, and prosody; Speech science, discourse, and conversational analysis; Multilingual and dialectal speech; Auditory modeling and neural mechanisms of speech
2. Speech Analysis, Synthesis, and Conversion
Automatic speech recognition and understanding; Speech synthesis and voice conversion; Speaker, language, and paralinguistic analysis; Speech enhancement, separation, and robust processing; Low-resource and cross-lingual speech processing; Speech security, spoofing detection, and adversarial robustness
3. Audio, Music, and Acoustic Signal Processing
Audio and acoustic signal processing and modeling; Spatial audio and sound-field analysis; Acoustic event detection and scene understanding; Audio information processing and generation; Music information processing and generation; Audio–speech integration and auditory modeling
4. Speech and Language Understanding with Large Models
Speech foundation models and large-scale models; Unified speech-language modeling; Multimodal large models; Speech semantic understanding and generation; Explainable and controllable speech intelligence
5. Spoken Dialogue Systems and Multimodal Interaction
Spoken dialogue systems and speech agents; Multi-turn dialogue and interaction modeling; Multimodal human-computer interaction; Affective and empathetic interaction; Virtual humans and immersive interaction
6. AI for Healthcare, Accessibility, and Wellness
Pathological speech analysis and applications; Mental health and cognitive modeling; Speech rehabilitation and assistive communication; Accessible speech technologies and inclusive AI; Medical dialogue systems and health intelligence
7. Speech and Language Data, Evaluation, and Systems
Speech and multimodal dataset construction; Data annotation and quality assessment; Benchmarks and evaluation methodologies; Industrial-scale systems and deployment; Real-time and edge speech processing
8. Generative AI and Emerging Interdisciplinary Topics
Generative speech and audio technologies; Speech and audio for embodied AI; Speech in virtual and immersive environments; Ethics, fairness, explainability, and privacy in speech AI; Industrial applications and interdisciplinary innovations
🌟 Special Sessions
NCMMSC 2026 welcomes proposals for Special Sessions on emerging and interdisciplinary topics, including but not limited to:
• Speech and Language Foundation Models
• Clinical and Pathological Speech Processing
• Multimodal Interaction
• Audio and Music Intelligence
• Empathetic and Cognitive Interaction
• Accessibility and Inclusive AI
📅 Important Dates
• Paper Submission Opens:
May 15, 2026
• Regular Paper Submission Deadline:
July 5, 2026
• Special Session Paper Submission Deadline:
July 31, 2026
• Notification of Paper Acceptance:
August 31, 2026
• Conference Dates:
November 5–8, 2026
📩 Submission and Participation
For detailed submission instructions and updates, please visit:
NCMMSC 2026 Author Guidelines
Researchers, students, and industry practitioners worldwide are warmly invited to submit papers and participate in NCMMSC 2026.
✨ Highlights
• Officially included in the CCF Recommended Conference List (Class C)
• Returning to the Greater Bay Area after nearly two decades
• Co-located with NLPCC 2026 and AACL 2026 for broader interdisciplinary interaction
• Focus on speech, language, and multimodal intelligence in the era of large AI models
• Promoting AI technologies for healthcare, accessibility, and societal impact
We look forward to welcoming you to Hengqin, Zhuhai, China, in November 2026!