上海押注新兴产业   2026-07-22

 

Shanghai's forward-looking development in emerging technologies and industrial resilience built up over time have helped the city achieve strong economic growth in the first half, which is especially notable amid rising market complexities and a changing global landscape, said experts.

Shanghai's GDP hit 2.79 trillion yuan ($412 billion) in the first half, up 5.6 percent year-on-year at constant prices, said the municipal statistics bureau on Monday.

This growth rate is not only higher than the national average, but also exceeds the municipality's annual GDP growth in 2024 and 2025, which came at 5 percent and 5.4 percent, respectively.

Zeng Gang, chief expert and director of the Shanghai Institution for Finance & Development, described Shanghai's first-half economic performance as "rock-solid" both in terms of quality and efficiency. It was not just one sector driving the numbers, but rather the combined result of industrial upgrading, investment growth and a surge in foreign trade, Zeng said.

Shanghai is well-positioned to achieve its full-year growth target amid the ongoing optimization of its economic structure and the accelerated transformation from old to new growth engines, he added.

Shanghai's higher level of opening-up, its success in getting foreign firms to set up regional headquarters, alongside its rich innovation resources and precise economic stimulus packages have been translated into the city's higher innovation efficiency and stronger economic resilience, said Zhan Yubo, deputy director for the Institute of Economics at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

While the added value of primary and secondary industry sectors rose by 0.9 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively, the tertiary sector surged 5.9 percent from a year earlier, further consolidating its role as a major economic driver for Shanghai.

Robust growth of the modern services sector encompassing finance, information transmission, software, information technology, leasing and business services carried the tertiary sector's added value to over 2.2 trillion yuan. Under closer scrutiny, the information transmission, software and information technology services sector spiked 9.1 percent year-on-year, mainly driven by the strong growth in sub-sectors such as artificial intelligence, integrated circuit design and platform enterprises.

The World AI Conference held in Shanghai from Friday to Monday served as solid proof, with the exhibition area reaching a record high of over 100,000 square meters.

In 2025, the industrial value of AI enterprises with a minimum annual sales revenue of 20 million yuan each totaled 600 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year spike of 39.5 percent.

AI has been defined as one of the three pioneering industries in Shanghai, along with integrated circuits and biomedicine. The output value of the three industries grew by 14.5 percent year-on-year in the first six months, with IC and AI manufacturing each reporting an annual growth rate of 20 percent.

The output value of strategic emerging industries grew 7.7 percent year-on-year in the first half. Among these, output value for new energy vehicles spiked by 33.9 percent, new energy by 20.6 percent and high-end equipment by 9.3 percent. Demand for products like satellites, rockets, high-end ships and domestically produced large aircraft remained strong, said the municipal statistics bureau.

All these results can be largely attributed to Shanghai's forward-looking strategies for new quality productive forces. Full-chain breakthroughs in IC and development of large AI models have all sped up in the city, said Ma Haiqian, vice-president of the Shanghai Academy of Development and Reform.

 

来源：China Daily

 

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