Shanghai AI industry attracts large amount of talent, capital

Shanghai and Beijing are attracting the most capital and talent in the booming Chinese artificial intelligence sector, said an AI industry chart released on Friday.

In the capital market, AI firms in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Nanjing were the most attractive nationwide by 2022. Between 2016 and 2022, Beijing topped the list with 27,000 AI fundraising campaigns with a total investment of 6.7 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion). Shanghai attracted an investment of 4.3 trillion yuan in 17,000 investment cases, according to the China AI Chart released on Friday.

The chart is conducted by Shanghai-based Qixinbao, with a business information database of 230 million companies.

Active investment and financing shows that the local legal system, business environment and talent environment have a sufficient draw, experts said.

In the city's blueprint, Shanghai aims to develop artificial intelligence, biomedicine and chip industries, as three strategic industries to boost innovation, digitization and economy development.

The AI industry has grown rapidly in China, with more registered companies.

According to Qixinbao, China had over 600,000 AI-related firms by the end of 2022, compared with 280,000 in 2016.

The industrial digitalization and generative AI applications, including ChatGPT, have boosted AI development in China.

By 2022, China's core AI industry revenue hit 500 billion yuan, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.