Zhongguancun hosts advances in AI and develops industry's ecosystem

Zhongguancun Science City, located in the northwest of Beijing, has demonstrated remarkable achievements in artificial intelligence and innovation ecosystem upgrades during the first half of 2025, according to Beijing Evening News.

The area hosts 70 percent of the city's AI unicorn companies and has helped deliver 944 million yuan ($132 million) for enterprises through incubators, while advancing the construction of 12 industrial parks, including a future energy industrial park. Unicorn companies refer to startups with valuations of $1 billion or more.

Zhongguancun Science City spans the Haidian Park area, covering 174 square kilometers, and extends to the whole of Haidian district and parts of Changping district, including Life Science Park. It serves as a core area for building Beijing into a global center for scientific and technological innovation.

Haidian district is home to 1,900 AI companies, including 26 unicorns. In the first half, 6,902 new tech enterprises were established.

The growth of Zhongguancun Science City is supported by prestigious universities and research institutions such as Peking University, Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which provide robust basic research resources. Flexible institutional frameworks in research organizations like the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences continually inject vitality into the area.

Zhongguancun Science City has been the launchpad for tech companies like Baidu, Xiaomi and Lenovo, which have gained global recognition. Emerging leaders such as Byte-Dance, Cambricon and Megvii have also risen from this hub. Meanwhile, international giants like Microsoft, IBM and SAP have established research and development centers in the area.

Notably, nine of the top 10 global open-source AI models hail from China. The leading model, GLM-4.5, was developed by the Haidian-based unicorn company Zhipu AI.

AI has become a pivotal force in reshaping the global innovation landscape and economic structures. As a national and global hub for AI talent, Zhongguancun Science City has introduced several measures to accelerate the development of a globally influential AI industry. These initiatives focus on policy, computing power, data, applications and ecosystem development.

Computing power serves as the infrastructure and foundation for AI development, while data act as the "raw material" for training AI. To enhance computing power, the Beijing AI public computing power platform ecosystem was launched in March.

On the data front, after Beijing was designated in 2024 as a pilot zone for the basic institutional framework for data, the country's first high-end data annotation demonstration base has been launched in Zhongguancun Science City. The Data Circulation, Utilization and Value-Added Collaboration Network, an AI model corpus center, and a new data operations platform portal have also become operational or are under construction.

In terms of application, national-level demonstration bases for AI in education, law and medicine are forming in Haidian district. Noteworthy cases, such as the Zidongtaichu intelligent services platform for scientific research, are being implemented, driving innovation through scenario-based initiatives.

Zhongguancun Science City continues to focus on its function as a platform for original, independent innovation, playing a leading role in Zhongguancun's pioneering innovation efforts and Beijing's high-quality development.