More companies make beeline for Shanghai

Several enterprises have vowed to invest in Shanghai amid continued efforts by the city to improve government efficiency and facilitate technology innovation.

Their investment commitments came during the Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conference 2025 held on Tuesday, which also marked the beginning of a weeklong business soliciting activity named "Invest in Shanghai".

The city inked a total of 21 new projects during the conference, covering sectors such as advanced materials, integrated circuits, high-end equipment, biomedicine, green and low-carbon development, digital economy and intelligent computing.

Among the newly signed projects were a new production facility and the regional headquarters of Shanghai Superconductor Technology Co Ltd. With a total investment of 2.5 billion yuan ($340 million), the project — located in Zhangjiang of Shanghai's Pudong New Area — is projected to be the world's first large-scale industrial-level production and R&D base for second-generation high-temperature superconducting tapes.

At least 15,000 such tapes will be produced at the new facility, which is scheduled to become operational in 18 months, according to the company's chairman, Ma Tao.

This annual output equals to 5 billion yuan of industrial value. These tapes are widely used in high-speed transportation, large scientific equipment, electricity supply and high-end medical devices, among others.

Zhangjiang's emphasis on "hard technologies", a vibrant entrepreneurship spirit, and the pursuit of technology advancement among local companies can help land high-efficiency industrial products.

Shanghai's focus on the nuclear fusion industry and several attempts at the application of superconducting cables will benefit the superconducting industry in general, said Ma.

On Tuesday, the second batch of Shanghai's industrial transformation and upgrade fund, valued at 50 billion yuan, as well as the State-owned Capital M&A Fund Matrix of Shanghai, also valued at over 50 billion yuan, were launched.

The funds will invest in emerging industries such as new generation electronic information, high-end equipment, biomedicine and civil aviation, among others.

Financial services conglomerate China Renaissance will work closely with the new funds, according to the company's chief executive officer, Wang Lixing.

State-backed funds in Shanghai have been quite active, sticking to market practices, and this has greatly facilitated the city's efforts to attract new businesses, he said.

"While China Renaissance started to serve as the external partner of companies about 10 years ago, the municipal government and district-level administrations in Shanghai have long assumed such a role, addressing companies' needs while making little disruptions to the daily operations of companies," he said.

Technology advancement has been one major feature of this year's conference.

As China has taken the lead in the development of humanoid robots, embodied intelligence and artificial intelligence, China Renaissance will step up its investments in these sectors, said Wang.

Li Shufu, chairman of automotive company Geely Holding Group, made a keynote speech with a pair of smart augmented reality glasses.

Part of the research team for the glasses, made by a Geely ecosystem company, is based in Shanghai. Since Shanghai is the accelerator driving Geely's technological transformation and globalization, the company will increase its investment in the city, focusing on new energy vehicles, intelligent connectivity and the methanol-hydrogen ecosystem, he said.

While Shanghai helped companies save 116 billion yuan last year, it will introduce more measures this year to reduce their cost of financing, transformation and logistics, Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng said during the conference.

The development plan for 14 district-level leading industries was also released on Tuesday.

While aiming to bring their respective industrial value up to 100 billion yuan by the end of this year, the plan will help improve efficiency by seeking differentiated development paths and avoiding redundancies, said Chen Feifei, director of the comprehensive planning division at the Shanghai Economic and Informatization Commission.