Shanghai plans to set up the Grand neoBay Sci-Tech Innovation Park with over 1,000 high-tech enterprises expected to be settled there by 2025. The neoBay Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Community, the innovative and sustainable industrial incubator, and the prototype of the Grand neoBay, were launched near Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) in Minhang district in 2015. With continuous development, the incubator has expanded to a 17-square-kilometer Grand neoBay rim around SJTU and East China Normal University, becoming a scientific and innovation cluster with a complete service platform and ecosystem for growth and cultivation of sci-tech companies, Liu Duo, Vice Mayor of Shanghai, said at a press conference. At present, the Grand neoBay has completed 18 high-level scientific innovation platforms with the settlement of over 3,000 companies that possess key technologies.
The plan for the innovation park emphasizes the integration of industry, education, research and applications. The sci-tech center will have more than 600 high-tech enterprises, including more than 70 enterprises with an estimated market value of over CNY100 million by the end of 2023. By 2025, the Grand neoBay will be completed with over 1,000 high-tech companies and a regional output of CNY100 billion. Breakthroughs in a number of core technologies in key industries are expected to be made. In order to achieve the goals, the plan also specifies five action plans containing 22 measures. The universities located in the center will be directed to open and share innovation resources and the fintech service system will be completed. The focus will be on the three leading industries of biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and high-end equipment, as well as on the “new track” of future industries such as the digital economy, green and low-carbon and the metaverse, the Global Times reports.
There are two prestigious institutions of higher education – Shanghai Jiao Tong University and East China Normal University – more than 10 scientific research institutes specializing in aerospace, aviation and shipbuilding, and more than 20 state key laboratories within the 17-square-kilometer bay, the China Daily adds. Shanghai Vice Mayor Liu Duo said that Grand neoBay has seen a transformation from ‘an innovation platform’ to ‘an innovation ecosystem’. She explained that the purpose of the new bay is to build a collaborative innovation system that integrates inputs from the government, industry, education, research, finance and the service sectors, attracts various entities, and promotes the free flow and integrated development of talent, technologies, capital and other factors.
Ding Kuiling, President of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that by combining the country’s major strategies and the school’s academic strengths, the university has pushed forward innovation plans in the ocean, health and information fields. “Over the past three years, the university has monetized more than 450 scientific research achievements with a total contract value of nearly CNY3 billion,” said Ding. “The figures were five times the amount of the previous three years, and I believe we’re at the beginning of another breakthrough period,” he said. He also noted that teachers and alumni of the university have started dozens of enterprises at Grand neoBay, and some of them are already applying for initial public offerings (IPOs) on Shanghai’s science and technology innovation board.
