From Horizon Robotics, Megvii Technology, to the first AIGC company Chumenwenwen, and from the Yuhua High-tech Industrial Belt that gathers Huawei, Honor, and OV, to Xianlinzhigu and China Software Valley.

Author | Lu Yao

Editor | Sang Mingqiang

What kind of city is Nanjing exactly?

Riding a bike around the Huanling Road, starting from the Zijinshan Cableway and ending at the Aviation Martyrs Memorial Hall, it connects Baima Park, Taiping Gate of Xuanwu Lake, the oldest Ming City Wall site, Shichao Cultural Park, Linggu Temple, Zijinshan Villa... With lush trees and historical rhymes, on this road, you can see almost half of Nanjing's natural landscapes and cultural history.

Starting from the destination, passing through the Jiuhuashan Tunnel and crossing Xuanwu Lake, it takes less than half an hour to arrive at Xinjiekou. Within a radius of 3 kilometers, it gathers the most representative economic, political, and cultural centers of the city. The Presidential Palace, Confucius Temple, and Jiming Temple, these well-known landmarks, have left a relatively fixed impression of Nanjing.

However, it seems that because of this, the beautiful land of Jiangnan since ancient times has not left too many impressive places in the emerging technology field, leading to many regrets such as "Nanjing doesn't have major internet technology companies."

But is such a judgment objective enough?

Looking at a set of data, from 2012 to 2021, Nanjing's R&D investment increased by nearly 40 billion yuan, and the number of high-tech enterprises grew by more than ten times from 733; nearly 900 unicorn and gazelle companies were cultivated, and a total of 88 technology-based companies completed listings, accounting for nearly 60% of the total number of listed companies in the province. As of 2023, in the selection of international innovative cities, Nanjing ranked fourth, with a global innovation index ranking of 11th, and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements directly drove the city's economy to exceed one trillion yuan.

In many unnoticed corners, Nanjing is undergoing a new round of transformation, and even local people rarely feel the impact. The collision between cutting-edge technology and a historical and cultural city is particularly silent in Nanjing, perhaps also a unique restraint of this city.

01

Walking Out from Zhujiang Road

The area south of Southeast University and east of Nanjing University, as described by old real estate agents, is Zhujiang Road, which is less than 3 kilometers away from Xuanwu Lake in a straight line. This street is 4 kilometers long and gathers various delicious snacks, but 20 years ago, it was known as the "Technology Street" with the saying "Zhongguancun in the north and Zhujiang Road in the south".

Tracing back to 1985, with the introduction of the reform plan for the scientific and technological system, scientific research institutions across the country moved towards the market, and scientific and technological personnel started their own businesses. Zhujiang Road, surrounded by many universities and research institutes, was the first stop for them to gather. In addition to the "three parks and one street" development pattern, by 2000, Zhujiang Road had gathered more than 1,500 computer companies, developing into the largest electronic computer product distribution center in East China, with a total trade volume of over 5 billion yuan, contributing nearly half of the GDP of Xuanwu District.

Xinhuahai, Fuzhong Technology, Hongtu Sanbao, Tuniu Travel, these business giants in the first decade of the internet era were all born on Zhujiang Road. Next to it, a building called Suiyuan Building, years ago, once housed Aotao Technology, one of the cross-border e-commerce academies known as Huangpu Military Academy, and was also the first job place for Xu Yangtian, the founder of SHEIN, when he just graduated.

Times have changed, and Zhujiang Road has transformed from an entrepreneurial base into a food street now. A relatively fair statement is that the impact of e-commerce on physical stores made it the first to bear the brunt. Along with the fading of Zhujiang Road, it seems that Nanjing's sense of internet technology has also dissipated.

E-commerce platforms like Taobao and JD.com did not originally emerge in Nanjing, and the internet dividend did not allow traditional brands like Suning and Five Star to make a second leap. But Nanjing did not miss out on e-commerce. On the contrary, before Taobao, there were many local Nanjing companies that focused on e-commerce, but their approach was different.

For example, in addition to the aforementioned Aotao Technology, Focus Technology, incubated by Southeast University, originally provided online promotion services for small and medium-sized enterprises. In 1996, the company launched Made-in-China.com, which was the earliest cross-border e-commerce platform in China that focused on one-stop B2B services.

At that time, cross-border e-commerce had not yet entered the mainstream market's attention, and compared to B2C, the business cycle and supply chain improvement process of B2B were more complex. Similarly, SHEIN, which is also headquartered in Nanjing, is now one of the few world-class super unicorns in China. However, before that, SHEIN's flexible supply chain was honed over more than a decade.

It is worth noting that Nanjing's mature foreign trade industry and supply chain integration capabilities are particularly effective at present. Data shows that in 2023, Nanjing's cross-border e-commerce scale ranked first in Jiangsu Province. In addition to listed companies such as Sunteam, SOHO, and Sumec, it has formed four major cross-border e-commerce export industrial belts in smart manufacturing, outdoor products, power tools, and textile and clothing. Many Nanjing-based companies' products have become dominant on various overseas e-commerce platforms.

It is not difficult to find that the combination of research-oriented players and manufacturing powerhouses has almost become Nanjing's urban positioning, which also determines its long-term industrial harvest period, destined to be a thick accumulation of efforts.

Millions of people flow into Nanjing from other places every year to study, find jobs, and settle down. In the eyes of many old Nanjing people, this simple and solid characteristic allows Nanjing to remain on track as a new first-tier city in the fast-paced era, while also preserving the slow pace and happiness to the greatest extent.

02

Yuhua and Jianye, Nanjing's New Generation of Technological Hubs

Returning to the original question, does Nanjing really have major companies? Behind this question is actually an exploration of whether Nanjing has grasped new opportunities in the era of emerging internet technology industries.

If the area around Zhujiang Road was a hotbed for entrepreneurship 20 years ago, then the nearby Yuhua District, which is also one of Nanjing's important commercial and economic centers, has attracted well-known companies and research institutes such as Honor and Huawei, covering multiple fields such as manufacturing, services, and technology industries.

The "Huashenmiao Community" located in Yuhua Street started as the "Huashenmiao Village" in the 1980s and underwent a transformation and upgrade from flower cultivation to manufacturing. In 1995, by chance, the local area successfully attracted ZTE to relocate its Nanjing Research Institute to the village. At that time, ZTE's headquarters was in Shenzhen, and the Nanjing Research Institute mainly produced switches. The original rented army compound had just been rented out to an old factory building.

Since the completion of the first phase of ZTE's Nanjing R&D Center in 2001, followed by the second and third phases, Nanjing has become ZTE's largest R&D base in China. With ZTE's entry as a starting point, Yuhua District, which originally focused on developing vegetable bases, entered a period of transformation.

In 2005, Blue Chip Valley was officially renamed Software Entrepreneurship Park, and Yuhua District clarified its development strategy for high technology. With its superior geographical location in central Nanjing and rich scientific research talent resources within the city, one of Huawei's eight research institutes officially landed in 2010. Unlike research institutes in Beijing, Shanghai, and other places that focus on wireless communication, network technology, AI, and optoelectronic technology, the Nanjing Research Institute is an important base for Huawei in software development and technical services.

The cloud computing industry chain is long, including upstream basic hardware equipment providers, midstream service providers, and downstream industry application software. Nanjing Huawei's Terminal Cloud Service Global Operation and Maintenance Center is also the global operation and maintenance center for Huawei's terminal cloud services. Media reports have stated that with the cooperation of Huawei and upstream and downstream companies in the industry chain, Nanjing has attracted more than 850,000 software talents, introduced more than 500 companies in the industry chain, and achieved revenue of over 720 billion yuan in the software and information service industry.

In addition, Yuhua District has not only truly transformed into one of the few software powerhouses in the country, but under such a siphon effect, it has also gathered a group of leading companies in the cloud computing industry, attracting R&D centers of mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO and vivo. At the same time, Nanjing's software industry has grown rapidly, ranking second only to Shenzhen and Hangzhou, ranking third in the country.

In 2016, to enhance the province's internet government service capabilities and promote the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing and software enterprises, Alibaba Group's Taobao University team and Alibaba Cloud team entered Nanjing's Jianye District, focusing on promoting e-commerce services and cloud computing technology. In addition, a group of leading internet companies such as Xiaomi, Tencent, Didi, and Netease have settled in Jianye, directly driving rapid economic growth in Hexi.

It should be noted that before this, although Nanjing had a large base of IT talent, more than half of them served in outsourcing, and outsourcing companies did not possess core technologies. The entry of internet giants is conducive to the transformation of technological talents' innovative capabilities. For example, Alibaba provides comprehensive jobs such as front-end, back-end, testing, and algorithms in addition to CCO positions. Other major companies such as Xiaomi and Honor also have many core departments located in Nanjing.

03

Conclusion

In most people's impression, Nanjing's industries are generally labeled as state-owned enterprises and manufacturing, and while it is praised as a research city, it is also known as a city of institutions. In fact, as the underlying industry of Jiangsu Province, Nanjing does have a strong industrial color. However, with the changing times, past perceptions are more or less mixed with some biases.

The biggest feeling of living here is a unique experience that combines the ancient with the modern, tradition with innovation. With a cultural heritage full of humanistic sentiment, Nanjing has not been absent in the field of scientific and technological innovation.

Including the hottest AI industry in recent years, the ancient city is facing the freshest challenges. However, from practical actions, Nanjing has implemented the deployment of "AI+", building the largest and most powerful nationalized intelligent computing center in the Yangtze River Delta region, with computing power reaching 18 billion billion operations per second.

From Horizon Robotics, Megvii Technology, to the first AIGC company Chumenwenwen, from the Yuhua High-tech Industrial Belt that gathers Huawei, Honor, and OV, to Xianlinzhigu and China Software Valley, Zhigu has gathered over 500 AI companies, attracting hundreds of talents such as Nobel Prize, Turing Award winners, academicians, and professors. There are now over 5,000 AI R&D personnel, and Lu Qi's Qiji Chuangtan has also settled here.

At the World Smart Manufacturing Conference held at the end of last year, more than 390 exhibitors from 10 countries and regions around the world participated. Among the displays of intelligent manufacturing solutions and the latest practices covering various industries, Nanjing branches of Siemens, Dassault Systemes, Phoenix Contact, China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Huawei, and ZTE showcased globally leading technological solutions; companies such as NARI Technology and Hengli Hydraulics demonstrated best practices from national-level intelligent manufacturing demonstration factories.

Cloud computing, big data, robotics, and AI big models, Nanjing's scientific and educational foundation not only outputs talents for various industries in society but also attracts more talents and enterprises with its charm. Here, there is a more inclusive entrepreneurial environment than in super first-tier cities, and it will not hesitate to incubate excellent companies to seek broader development spaces outside, which is the warmth of Nanjing as a city.

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