Qingdao’s forerunner industry and emerging industry in 2025 both witnessed a year-on-year growth of more than 10%, occupying an increasing share of the “10+1” industrial system. Changes in figures are a testament to the encouraging development trend that “innovation” is featuring in and turbocharging the city’s industrial system.

Industrial restructuring gained pace. New-generation information technology and artificial intelligence, two forerunner industries, took the lead in making breakthroughs, and realized a combined revenue of over RMB 250 bln. Five emerging sectors, including life and health, smart connected NEVs, low-altitude economy, green energy and intelligent equipment, have grown vigorously, whose combined revenue amounted to nearly RMB 600 bln. Furthermore, Qingdao has formulated appropriate plans for developing future-oriented industries, and secured a leading position in deep sea exploitation and terahertz among other sectors.

A steady stream of achievements were scored in niche segments. Qingdao continues to prioritize developing key sectors such as automotive grade chips, new-type displays, large ocean models and solid-state batteries. Hisense has rolled out the world’s first RGB AI chip, the solid-state battery production line of Hytzer Energy Co., Ltd. is about to meet its full capacity, and the city has as many as 34 large AI marine models under R&D, ranking top in China.

Institutional innovation and projects fostered synergy. Qingdao has put in place a special working mechanism to boost industrial development in full swings, and will implement 430 major projects with a total investment of RMB 366 bln. The city is now home to more than 15,000 technology-based enterprises, where technological contracts have amounted to RMB 76 bln. As the building of a development paradigm for industrial chains and clusters such as integrated circuits and new-type displays gains speed, new quality productive forces are helping improve Qingdao’s industrial system substantially. (Yang Guang)