Author: Song Xi | Site Selection 960

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Backed by hundreds of millions in state-owned capital investment, Kai-Fu Lee's 01.AI has chosen Hangzhou as its new home.

01.AI recently confirmed that it will establish its headquarters in Linping District, Hangzhou, and build an industrial AI transformation base on that foundation. According to Tianyancha, the company's registered address has not yet been updated, but a new entity was set up in Hangzhou in October, registered at the Digital Port in Linping District, with Kai-Fu Lee as the sole shareholder.

Reports indicate that 01.AI has signed agreements with the Hangzhou municipal government and Linping District, with municipal and district-level state-owned capital jointly investing hundreds of millions of yuan.

Image source: Internet

Hangzhou Digital Port. Image source: Hangzhou Investment Promotion Bureau official WeChat account

Public records show that Hangzhou Digital Port is located at No. 600 Hongfeng Road, Donghu Street, Linping District. Completed and brought to market around 2022, it spans a total construction area of over 200,000 square meters across 16 buildings for R&D, production, offices, and laboratories, along with talent apartments. The park's supporting industries include digital healthcare, medical devices, big data and cloud computing, IoT, and next-generation information technology. It is expected to become the core site for 01.AI's headquarters project and industrial AI base.

Linping District is Hangzhou's eastern new city, tasked with advancing Hangzhou's strategic goal of "integrating with the Yangtze River Delta and connecting with Shanghai." At its heart lies the Computing Power Town, the nation's first characteristic town named after computing power. Opened in 2021, it focuses on digital industries such as computing power chips, new intelligent computing, and AI applications. The area is currently building a closed-loop system of "technology R&D—scenario pilots—large-scale implementation" around two major fields: computing power infrastructure and terminal applications.

On the headquarters decision, 01.AI said the partnership will further connect Hangzhou's capital and industrial resources with 01.AI's enterprise AI technology and industrial practice capabilities, driving AI deep into companies' core operations and accelerating the large-scale deployment of industrial AI. CEO Kai-Fu Lee remarked that industrial AI transformation will become Hangzhou's next calling card in AI.

Image source: Tianyancha

According to its official website, 01.AI was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Haidian, Beijing. Founder Kai-Fu Lee previously served as Chairman of Sinovation Ventures and former Global Vice President of Microsoft. The company is deeply engaged in industrial AI transformation, building an enterprise-level AI agent platform, and has accumulated customer practice experience in international energy, manufacturing, multinational insurance, and other sectors. Reports indicate that in 2025 the company's total orders reached approximately 500 million yuan, with a full-year contract target of 1.5 billion to 2 billion yuan for 2026. The company is preparing for an IPO in 2027.

On 01.AI's entry into Hangzhou, the Linping Release WeChat account stated that after the company settles in, it will work with the embodied intelligence core components industrial park under construction in the district to bring in supporting enterprises across the industrial chain, innovation partners, and startups in niche tracks, batch by batch. Linping and 01.AI may also establish a fund at a later stage, mainly investing in industrial chain ecosystem enterprises and projects set up in Linping District.

According to incomplete statistics, Hangzhou's AI industry landscape currently includes DeepSeek, Tongyi Qianwen, ModelScope Community, Unitree Technology, Deep Robotics, Qianxun Intelligence, BrainCo, and others widely regarded as leaders in the AI industry. Data shows that in the first half of 2026, Hangzhou's core AI industry revenue reached 270.5 billion yuan, up 26% year on year. The city has gathered 938 core AI enterprises, including 6 with revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan and 69 exceeding 1 billion yuan. The city's total intelligent computing capacity reached 56 exaflops, ranking second in the country. Hangzhou is reportedly making every effort to build itself into "the nation's first city for AI innovation and development," aiming to achieve a core AI industry revenue scale of over 550 billion yuan by 2026.