Bigger vision

Changning is just one snapshot of Shanghai's goal for the next five years, which is to take the upper hand in developing frontier and future-oriented industries by giving full play to its existing advantages.

During a municipal government meeting in late November, Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng emphasized that the 15th Five-Year Plan period is critical for the city's transformation and upgrading. Unswerving efforts should be made to develop new quality productive forces. Shanghai should consolidate its role as a source of technology innovation and a place where innovation results can be successfully transformed, he said.

The good news is the city is well-placed to achieve these goals. During the first three quarters of 2025, the three pioneering industries of AI, biomedicine and integrated circuits saw their combined industrial output jump 8.5 percent year-on-year, helping Shanghai's GDP grow by 5.5 percent in the period — 0.3 percentage points higher than the national average and exceeding market expectations.

While Shanghai's GDP reached 5.39 trillion yuan ($760 billion) in 2024, the three pioneering industries saw their combined industrial output reach 1.8 trillion yuan.

Their contribution to Shanghai's GDP was 33.4 percent last year, compared with about 7.5 percent in 2021, when the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period started.

But Shanghai has a bigger vision.

In late October, the city rolled out 15 measures to support the development of "frontier and disruptive "technologies covering cell and gene therapy, brain-computer interface, silicon-based optoelectronics, quantum technology and controlled nuclear fusion.

Although these areas are lesser known, Shanghai has already set up a 15 billion-yuan fund to develop these future-oriented industries. More specific tasks have been set, including nurturing 20 industry leaders in these cutting-edge sectors by 2027. Industrial clusters of these emerging technologies should also be established in the city by 2030.

Wang Sizheng, president of the Shanghai Society of Macroeconomics, said strengthening technological independence is a core mission for Shanghai in the upcoming five years.

But the development of new quality productive forces does not follow a linear path. It is usually with a singular technological breakthrough that chain effects are instigated. In this sense, technological innovation is deeply embedded in industrial upgrading. It is for this reason that companies usually play a critical role in innovation, said Wang.