Shanghai to encourage AI, VR development as it eyes bigger role in tech
- AI, VR technologies have ‘the potential to evolve into several clusters of industries’, analyst says
- Key companies in these fields are expected to enjoy cuts in corporate tax rates
At a conference to set up the city’s economic agenda for next year, the government said it will guide firms to step up research on “important platforms for the interaction between the virtual world and real society”. Li Qiang, Shanghai’s Communist Party secretary, and Gong Zheng, its mayor, attended the meeting on Tuesday.
“Shanghai and other governments in the Yangtze River Delta are actively investing in the future, with focuses on integrated circuits, biotechnology and AI,” said Wang Zhen, vice-president of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “Those technologies have the potential to evolve into several clusters of industries, to expand the economy and consumption.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, the city’s government said Shanghai should “actively seize the track of the digital economy and comprehensively promote the city’s digital transformation”. Key companies in these fields are expected to enjoy cuts in corporate tax rates.
The city aims to build world-class technology industries that can consolidate its role as a gateway to mainland China for foreign businesses, said the Shanghai Academy’s Wang.
Shanghai’s technology push comes amid the rise of the metaverse, which translates as Yuanyuzhou in Chinese. Chinese companies are rushing to register relevant trademarks.