Shanghai setting up world's biggest AI incubator in Xuhui

Shanghai plans to establish the world's largest artificial intelligence development incubator, spanning 100,000 square meters, in downtown Xuhui District. This initiative underscores the city's ambition to become a global hub for AI innovation and application, local officials said on Friday.

Detailed plans of the incubator will be announced at the upcoming Global Developer Conference (GDC), which will be held on February 21-23 in Shanghai.

Developers from Hugging Face, Huawei and Microsoft communities, and officials from Chinese AI star DeepSeek will attend the conference, a high-level global AI developer event, city officials said.

The incubator will not only be the biggest in terms of physical space that spreads over 100,000 square meters, it will also offer developers various resources for a healthy and vibrant ecosystem covering online community, policy support, fundraising channels and Xuhui and Shanghai's AI capabilities, Yu Linwei, vice mayor of Xuhui District, told a press briefing on the GDC on Friday.

Xuhui now hosts over 255 AI model companies and more than 100 investment institutions while being home to 10 unicorn companies, which refer to private firms valued at more than US$1 billion.

Yang Haijun, chief engineer of the Shanghai Cyberspace Administration, highlighted the city's leading position in AI development, with 68 generative AI models approved, ranking first nationally. He emphasized Shanghai's commitment to deep integration of AI into various sectors, supported by robust policies and funding.

"Shanghai is fostering a collaborative ecosystem where innovation thrives, and developers can achieve breakthroughs, like DeepSeek," Yang said, referring to the wildly popular chatbot developer.

The year 2025 is being hailed as the "Year of AI Application", with AI set to transform education, health care, and urban governance. The new incubator is poised to accelerate this transformation, fostering a globally competitive AI ecosystem that will drive innovation and economic growth, city officials said.

DeepSeek-style innovation to highlight GDC 2025

The 2025 GDC will be held at the West Bund and the Caohejing Convention Center in Xuhui. The conference focuses on core technologies such as AI models, computing power, corpus, tools, and software platforms.

Participating developer groups include those involved in hardware development, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, AI, robotics, blockchain, and metaverse.

Members of DeepSeek, which has created a frenzy in the market and media with its low-cost, high-performance and open-source features, will attend the event, officials said.

MiniMax vice president Liu Hua highlighted the rise of non-Transformer-based models and the growing influence of Chinese-developed AI hardware and open-source platforms, such as DeepSeek.

DeepSeek's frenzy is "enhancing China's voice" in the global AI landscape, Liu said.