An innovative city with ambition

Artificial intelligence, virtual reality, new energy, bio-medicine — a wide array of as many as 1,300 new technologies and innovations were showcased at the China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fair held in Guangzhou May 26-27.

The fair, which has been undertaken by Guangzhou for three years, aimed to set up a complete transaction chain for technology, capital, talents and information, while focusing on technological innovations, industrialization and services.

The fair is both an important part of the city's innovation-driven development strategy and its ambition to build itself into an international hub of science and technological innovation. The central government has also assigned Guangdong province with Guangzhou as its capital city a pivotal role to play in the nation's implementation of innovation-driven development strategy.

By the end of 2016, Guangzhou had 4,739 high-tech companies, among which 2,820 were newly set up, an increase that ranked second in China to Beijing. The output value of the city's high-tech industries amounted to almost $131 billion, accounting for 46 percent of the city's total of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises.

Guangzhou is also a popular city for start-ups, with over 200 incubators covering an area of 8.6 million square meters and housing more than 10,000 enterprises and projects. The city has also built 14 national-level and 23 provincial-level international technological cooperation bases.

To create a favorable environment for innovation, entrepreneurship, investment and financing, the government will set up, in 2017, a $727 million fund to facilitate the industrialization of technological innovations, aiming to channel $3 billion of social capital. The government will also implement a plan to increase its budget to as much as $1.57 billion and aim to channel $8.59 billion of social capital for research and development.

By 2020, according to the city's newly promulgated 13th Five-year Plan for Innovations in Science and Technology, Guangzhou will build itself into a national demonstration city of independent innovation as well as a national innovation center, giving full play to its leading role in the city's surrounding Pearl River Delta region.

The five-year plan states that Guangzhou will give impetus to the development of emerging strategic industries like new-generation information technology, biology and health, new materials, high-end equipment, and new-energy vehicles. In addition, the city will also accelerate the development of industries of the future, covering artificial intelligence and robotics, precision medicine, wearable devices, cloud computing, big data and additive manufacturing.

Guangzhou annually hosts a large number of conferences and activities themed on technological innovation, entrepreneurship and high-caliber talents in science and technology, such as the Convention of Exchange of Overseas Talents in China, the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation, and the China Investment Conference, as well as the newly concluded China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fair.

This year, to beef up its efforts in this sector, Guangzhou will launch an award for scientific and technological innovation on the sidelines of the 2017 Fortune Global Forum.