Not long ago, the report team of Economic Daily visited Yangpu District, which is known for technology innovation, to find out how it draws the roadmap of future industries on the basis of Shanghai’s plan for future industries, faces the uncertainties of future industries with certain measures, fosters the “tipping point” of future industries and creates soil for technology innovation to attract talented people.

A full-page report entitled Seizing the Commanding Heights of Future Industries—Technology Innovation Roadmap of Yangpu District, Shanghai was published on Economic Daily today.

Here is the full text.

Future industries represent the direction of a new round of technological progress and industrial transformation. As one of the first cities in China to develop future industries, Shanghai is accelerating their development and seizing the commanding heights. Yangpu District, which is known for technology innovation, took the lead to try it out. By training talents and creating soil for technology innovation, Yangpu faces the uncertainties of and the challenges posed by future industries with great courage.

Whoever owns future technologies will get the upper hand. In September 2022, Shanghai released an action plan to boost industries of the future by building and developing more industrial clusters. According to the action plan, globally-influential substantial achievements, innovation-driven enterprises and leading talents will emerge in the fields of future health, smart technology, energy, space and materials by 2030.

After six months of planning, Shanghai is drawing the outline of future industries. How will it face the uncertainties of future industries with certain measures and find the “tipping point” of future industries? How will it give full play to the guiding role of enterprises with advantages? How will it make small and micro enterprises driven by technology innovation grow fast? And how will it create soil for technology innovation to attract talents from near and far?

With these questions, we went to Yangpu District, Shanghai, which is known for technology innovation, too see its roadmap of future industries.

Taking the lead

In November 2020, Meituan came; in January 2021, bilibili.com came; in July 2021, ByteDance came. When Yangpu District was outlining the future prospect, three major Internet platforms, Meituan, bilibili.com and ByteDance, settled in the Yangpu riverside, which is home to China’s first waterworks, first power plant and first gas plant, and known as the corridor of modern Chinese industrial civilization. Today, reeds, old factory buildings, towering cranes and intelligent office buildings are in harmony, and natural ecology is integrated into carefully preserved industrial relics. The factories and warehouses that the coastline used to be dotted with have been replaced with parks, marking the remarkable transformation from an “industrial rust belt” to a “life show belt”.

The authorities of Yangpu District looked back at history and sorted out remains to make room for the future. According to Xue Kan, secretary of the CPC Yangpu District Committee and district mayor, Yangpu District will use 7.46 square kilometers of land, nearly 60% of the entire Yangpu riverside, for the construction of Changyang Belt Online New Economy Ecological Park, aiming to get new supplies, create new demands, gather new energy and achieve high-quality economic development.

However, future industries are highly forward-looking and uncertain. Their typical features include breakthroughs based on disruptive innovative technologies, creation of new application scenarios and new consumption demands, as well as creation of new industries, new formats and new models. The planning of future industries counts on decision-makers’ vision for technological layout and entrepreneurs’ courage.

In 1997, Shanghai Yangpu Science and Technology Business Incubator Center, a state-level high-tech entrepreneurship service center and the first science and technology business incubator around institutions of higher education in Shanghai, was established. In 2006, the Knowledge and Innovation Community was officially put into operation in Wujiaochang sub-district, Yangpu District, covering an area of 0.84 square kilometers. In 2016, when Yangpu District became one of the first demonstration bases for popular entrepreneurship and innovation in China, entrepreneurs aiming at the future began to settle down here.

In 2011, Ji Xinhua started his own business in Yangpu District. Since then, he has turned from a student maker of Tongji University to the head of UCloud, a top cloud computing company in China. Back in 2011, cloud computing was a new thing, but Yunhai Mansion, the first cloud computing innovation base in Shanghai, had already risen on Daxue Road. Ji Xinhua became one of its first tenants.

“My office was on the 9th floor. There were cloud computing clients both upstairs and downstairs. I could share my opinions with them and formed truly valuable points of view, which would be helpful to our products,” said Ji Xinhua. “Upstream and downstream industries could be found upstairs and downstairs, and there was a complete industrial chain inside the park.”

In 2013, Zhao Bin, a young man from China, wrote the first line of code for Agora in a garage in Silicon Valley. Less than a year later, he relocated the company in Yangpu District, Shanghai. In the era when people did not know what livestreaming was, Zhao Bin dreamed of turning real-time audio and video clips into infrastructure like water and electricity. On June 26, 2020, Agora was became the first real-time interactive cloud company listed on NASDAQ.

Success belongs to the past. In face of challenges posed by new technology, entrepreneurs based in Yangpu District have developed new “skills” to handle the uncertainties of future industries.

Based in Bay Valley, Yangpu District, Qianxun SI is the first company in the world to integrate Internet technologies such as cloud computing and big data with satellite navigation, positioning and timing technologies. It created the world’s first satellite ground-based augmentation system under unified operation, realizing intelligent space and time application. “Amid the wave of digitalization, the application of Beidou has shifted from large-scale application to intelligent application,” said Chen Jinpei, CEO of Qianxun SI. “Although Beidou is difficult to be perceived, it’s everywhere in our lives. Now, it’s not only in your mobile phone, your car and shared bicycles but also in the construction of digital China.”

Meituan, which has just settled in Yangpu District, is busy promoting drone delivery. It is estimated that the urban low-altitude economy has an industrial value of multi-billion dollars, but it has just got started. “Currently, we have very few drone delivery orders, but we optimistically estimate that by 2030, our platform will generate a few hundred drone delivery orders every week,” said Mao Yinian, head of Meituan’s drone delivery division.

Entrepreneurs may suffer due to the uncertainties of future industries and think that they are probably wasting time. “It’s extremely difficult to find the laws of future industries, but we’re certain of the importance of talents and soil,” said Zhang Hongtao, chief engineer of Shanghai Economy and Information Technology Commission.

When leading enterprises are blazing a new trail through brambles, how can other enterprises keep up and form a cluster?

Looking for small technology enterprises with potential

In early April, the 2023 Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conference was held. Chen Rui, chairman and CEO of bilibili.com, delivered a speech on behalf of private enterprises. “Continuous emphasis on and support for start-up companies have made Shanghai a harbor for Internet companies in China. High-end Internet talents from all over the world are willing to come to Shanghai for career development.” According to Chen Rui, right after bilibili.com found a new office in Yangpu District in 2017, people of relevant government agencies visited the company to provide services. Such support made him feel warm.

The development of start-ups is highly uncertain, so is the process of finding the “tipping point” of future industries. As Chen Rui said, only by attracting more talents from near and far with good business environment can the seeds of hope germinate here.

“If a company’s development is in line with the direction of Yangpu’s high-quality development, we’ll provide it with good resources. If you’re willing to grow together with Yangpu District, we’ll stay by your side for a long time. We’ll do whatever we can to solve problems for enterprises.” On February 16, Xue Kan made three commitments at the 2023 Yangpu District Business Environment Optimization and Investment Promotion Conference.

Mingge (Shanghai) Information Technology Co., Ltd. received aid from Yangpu District—a guide fund of 1 million yuan from the Spark Program met their urgent need. “The guide fund will help with the company’s continuous financing and marketing in the future,” said Dr. Deng Yinhui, founder of Mingge.

The Spark Program is characterized by a combination of government funding and market investment instead of merely government support. It is a new measure for Yangpu District to promote the commercialization of scientific and technological findings and guide social capital to invest in small start-ups possessing substantial technology. In face of so many start-ups of this kind, how can we identify them? Yangpu District introduced a “horse racing” mechanism.

Feng Hua, chairman and general manager of Raise3D, an “invisible champion” in the field of 3D printing, has a lot to say about this. “Back then, we took the first step by participating in a sensor application competition. After that, we participated in the entrepreneurship competition organized by the School of Management, Fudan University. In that competition, we got 200,000 yuan of angel investment from the Fudan sub-fund of Shanghai Technology Entrepreneurship Foundation for Graduates. After we got the fund, we decided to commercialize our scientific and technological findings. From a nursery in Shanghai Yangpu Science and Technology Business Incubator Center to an incubator, and then an accelerator, we’ve been growing in Bay Valley,” said Feng Hua. According to him, Raise3D has expanded from the west coast of the United States to the entire North American market, Europe, Japan and other regions.

In addition, OpenBayes joined hands with Shanghai Cloud Valley; Onesight, a BIM+AR construction platform, arrived in Changyang Campus; Fudan University Science Park signed a distributed energy storage agreement. On April 6, a group of talents chose to settle down in Yangpu District at the 7th Shanghai Yangpu Entrepreneurship Star Competition Awards and Innovation and Entrepreneurship Talents’ Talk.

Since the first Shanghai Yangpu Entrepreneurship Star Competition was held in 2016, 818 “entrepreneurship stars” have been selected, including 34 high-level overseas talents in Shanghai, 10 state-level overseas talents, 7 small giant enterprises of science and technology in Shanghai and 11 small giant enterprises of popular entrepreneurship and innovation in Yangpu District.

“Yangpu will insist on keeping talents through competitions, provide follow-up services for good projects, good ideas and good technologies that stood out in the competition, accelerate the integration of the innovation chain, the industrial chain, the capital chain and the talent chain, help enterprises get the policies, funds, carriers and incubation services they need as soon as possible, and fully support the commercialization of innovation achievements,” said Xue Kan.

“In face of the uncertainties of future industries, we need to use the horse racing mechanism to reveal the rankings and see which fields stand out in the competition. If we see a few ‘tipping points’ in five to eight years, the work we’ve done will be meaningful,” said Zhang Hongtao.

Expecting heavyweight enterprises to rise

“I don’t expect every seed to grow into a towering tree, but I hope they can grow healthily,” said Zhang Tianwei, director of Yangpu District Development and Reform Commission. By making use of the scientific and educational resources of more than 10 institutions of higher education in the district, Yangpu has integrated university campuses, sci-tech parks and public communities, and put forward the core concept of “joint development” to integrate university towns, industrial parks and innovation parks. “We call this the ‘tropical rainforest’ innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem”.

Changyang Campus does not look like an industrial park. Coming from a century-old spinning mill, it lies among business districts, institutions of higher education and old residential quarters. With patches of lawns and clusters of small shops, Changyang Campus is exquisite, artistic and trendy.

“Here, you can smell innovation when you open the window.” According to Zhang Hong, general manager of Shanghai Changyang Campus Enterprise Development Co., Ltd., Changyang Campus has attracted CATL, Xiaomi Automobile and other enterprises to its functional areas by making good use of capital elements. It has formed a demonstration model featuring open scenes in the park, enterprise investment in construction and government promotion by strengthening the demonstration role and promoting unmanned vehicles for delivery and retail in closed scenes and semi-open scenes.

According to Zhang Hong, during various exchange activities held in the park, KBVIP, a new energy technology company in the park, continuously communicates with other new energy automobile companies in the park. It signed cooperation agreements on the construction of an integrated intelligent supercharging station, which will be part of an AI supercharging network.

In GKIC, an innovation park not far from Changyang Campus, the resources of institutions of higher education including Fudan University and Tongji University have been put together. The talent advantage will help turn this place into a benchmark for the integration of university towns, industrial parks and innovation parks in Shanghai and even the Yangtze River Delta region. Here, ATRenew, an environmental protection technology company founded by Fudan graduates, has grown into a leader in China’s digital circular sector. Fab-Union, a company established by Tongji graduates, is specialized in digital design and intelligent construction of buildings. Its representative projects include the permanent venue of the World Internet Conference and the China pavilion of Venice Biennale of Architecture. GKIC facilitates entrepreneurship right after graduation from college and just outside universities.

In such an entrepreneurial atmosphere, vitality is everywhere, which lays the foundation for the development of future industries. Statistics show that there are 7 state-level university science parks in Yangpu District (50% of those in Shanghai), 258 small giant enterprises and more than 1,200 high-tech enterprises, ranking first among the central areas of Shanghai.

Only by creating soil for entrepreneurship can we plant seeds of hope for the future. Faced with the gathering of innovative elements and the emergence of innovative achievements, Yangpu authorities are having a stronger sense of urgency. Institutions of higher education in the district gather young talents from all over the country and even the world, with 30,000 graduates every year. Can these talents become innovative forces? Can the integration of university campuses, sci-tech parks and public communities become a cradle for leading figures in future industries?

During the interview, many entrepreneurs raised questions over supporting policies, technology application scenarios and other topics. Heads of relevant functional departments took notes and promised to answer their questions as soon as possible.

“Our ultimate goal is to gather all the innovative and entrepreneurial resources and elements in the region,” said Zheng Yuexiao, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Shanghai Yangpu Science and Technology Innovation (Group) Co., Ltd. “For example, we shall connect universities, research institutions, associations, ecological partners and other elements of innovation and entrepreneurship so that high-end talents and entrepreneurs can communicate with each other. Only in this way can giants be born.”

There is no smooth path for innovation or entrepreneurship. In the ups and downs, more trendsetters will emerge. The door to the future is open, and it is expected that both small and big enterprises will get a spot in the future industrial structure.