Hefei city emerges as rising industrial powerhouse

The city of Hefei – capital of East China's Anhui province – has witnessed significant growth in its industrial development over the past few years.

Its focus on cultivating its industrial supply chain and nurturing innovation through social capital is widely said to have led to remarkable growth in local strategic emerging industries.

Thanks to Hefei's investment model – which prioritizes support and guides investment towards upstream and downstream enterprises – industrial clusters centered around display devices, integrated circuits and artificial intelligence have been formed.

These thriving clusters are believed to reflect the city's industrial transformation and progress.

Hefei's strategic emerging industries have contributed to the city's growing electricity consumption, which generated a year-on-year increase of 9.79 percent last year, while its six leading industries experienced a 20.79 percent growth.

In 2022, strategic emerging industries was estimated to contribute 78 percent to the city's total industrial growth.

A formidable view of the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone. [Photo/WeChat ID: hefeigaoxinfabu]

Zhang Hui, general manager of Origin Quantum – a quantum computing company that established itself in the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone in 2017 – is now very bullish about the future.

But he recently revealed that his enterprise initially had difficulty finding investors to support the venture.

Nonetheless, a tranche of government investment funding was injected to keep the group alive. As a result, within a few years it had become the first quantum computing unicorn enterprise in China.