The G60 Science and Innovation Corridor, which connects nine cities in the Yangtze River Delta Region through the G60 Highway and the Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou Railway, has achieved remarkable results since its establishment seven years ago.

Consisting of cities on both sides of the Yangtze River, the corridor has become a giant ship that rides the wave of technological innovation as it emerges from the Huangpu River. The nine cities have worked together to form an first-class international scientific and technological innovation ecosystem, providing a broad space for the growth of scientific and technological innovation and the gradual improvement of scientific and technological strength.

The corridor has significantly boosted its investment in research and development, with an increase from 3 percent to 3.55 percent, and growth of 163.4 percent in the number of PCT international patent applications to the Patent Cooperation Treaty, accounting for one-ninth of the national total. In addition, the number of national science and technology awards won by entities in the corridor has reached 16.2 percent of the national total, indicating a thriving innovation ecology.

The G60 Science and Innovation Corridor is dedicated to integration and high quality. The corridor’s strategic platform has successfully guided the complementary industrial capabilities of the nine cities.

On September 22, the G60 Science and Innovation Corridor Xuancheng Sci-Tech Center was opened in the Shanghai Lingang Songjiang Science and Technology City. The center serves as Xuancheng’s first cross-administrative “Innovation Enclave,” which opens a channel enabling international cutting-edge technology, high-end skills, and top talents to continue to flow into Xuancheng.

The Xuancheng Sci-Tech Center has already attracted 13 companies, including Huasun New Energy, Anhui Aoji, the Advanced Photovoltaic Research Institute, Conch Building Photovoltaic, and Kaisheng New Energy.

“Our enterprise will board the ‘fast train’ of the Sci-Tech Center, where we can develop in sync with the G60 Science and Innovation Corridor, have access to the latest technologies, access excellent talent, and create numerous opportunities,” said Sun Lingjun, senior vice president of Huasun New Energy.

As an effective carrier of regional collaborative innovation, 16 cities have focused on the integration of industrial chains and set up “Innovation Enclaves” in Songjiang, the source of the G60 Science and Innovation Corridor.

In various aspects such as industrial chain cooperation, technological innovation, financial empowerment, project landing, and investment promotion, the enclaves provide efficient and high-quality platforms for enterprise development.

Integrated development of resource sharing and cross-regional collaboration continue to deepen.

Guided by the strategic platform of the G60 Science and Innovation Corridor, the industrial capabilities of the nine cities complement each other. They have established the first 11 G60 technology transfer and transformation demonstration bases, including the G60 Sci-Tech Roadshow Center Consortium comprising of 46 member units, 16 industrial alliances, and 13 industrial collaboration demonstration areas; the “G60 Sci-Tech Cloud” online all-element docking platform; and the G60 technology transfer promotion center and alliance; among others.

From 2016 to the present, the corridor has focused on advanced manufacturing industry clusters.

It has incubated and attracted a number of specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises.

It is home to more than 100 companies that are listed on the STAR Market, alongside the G60 sci-tech corridor. Additionally, there are 44,200 high-tech enterprises, accounting for approximately one-eighth of the national contingent.

Songjiang’s “G60 Starlink” project successfully placed two multimedia beta test A/B satellites, named “Songjiang” and “G60,” into their designated orbits, etching the presence of the G60 sci-tech corridor in the very cosmos.

Starpower Semi-conductor in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, introduced an automotive-grade IGBT chip, considered a representative product of the third revolution in power electronics technology that will break foreign monopolies.

Zhengcheng Technology, headquartered in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, leverages BeiDou satellite technology for location reporting and short-message communications.

This enables the provision of essential emergency communication services in areas with limited signal coverage, ensuring uninterrupted real-time navigation and communication capabilities.

Hengtong Group in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, holds core technology in the marine optical fiber communication full industry chain, providing solutions for submarine optical fiber communication systems in more than 70 countries and regions.

LandSpace in Huzhou, Zhejiang, is a leading domestic aerospace transportation system creator and operator.

Its independently developed Zhuque II series carrier rocket is China’s first liquid oxygen methane carrier rocket.

Jingrui New Materials in Xuancheng, Anhui Province, has developed a JR05 photocatalyst, a highly active nano titanium dioxide, which generates strong oxidative substances under light exposure, decomposing organic and some inorganic compounds, bacteria, and viruses.

Huadong Optoelectronics in Wuhu, also in Anhui, supplies a wide range of high-tech products for more than 200 key projects and equipment, including the Shenzhou spacecraft and the Tiangong series.

Hefei’s iFlytek is a renowned intelligent speech and artificial intelligence enterprise in the Asia-Pacific region. Its “iFlytek Super Brain 2030” plan will advance the capabilities of artificial intelligence to learn and evolve, enabling robots to become part of households.

These remarkable initiatives and pioneering efforts in technology and industry are increasingly capturing the world’s attention, with international media highlighting the G60 sci-tech corridor as “China’s Silicon Valley,” “A vital frontier in global technological innovation,” and “A key driver of global sci-tech development.”

Jiaxing, in Zhejiang, for example, by leveraging the collaborative mechanism of the G60 sci-tech corridor, is utilizing all of its resources to build an innovative axis within the corridor.

The city is actively constructing several iconic collaborative innovation “sci-tech lake districts”, including the Xiangjiadang High-level Sci-tech Lake District, Xiangfudang Sci-tech Green Valley, Tian’e Lake Future Science City, and Juanhu International Science and Technology City.

These efforts aim to build a collaborative innovation platform system that showcases the complementary assets, resource sharing, and chain connections of the nine cities.

Finance is an important support for scientific and technological innovation. Since its establishment, the “G60 Science and Technology Achievement Transformation Fund of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor” has inspired many sci-tech innovation companies from the nine cities to apply.

The total size of the fund is 10 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), aiming to support targeted technological innovation enterprises.

Songjiang enterprise Huihe Medical has received targeted support from the fund, paving its way from pure R&D to market-oriented profitability, and has independently developed world-leading products in structural heart disease, vascular intervention, and intelligent intervention, and other fields.

Up to now, the fund has established a project library covering 600 companies. The G60 Joint Office and the fund management team have investigated more than 420 companies on the ground, with a total investment amount of 387 million yuan, encompassing integrated circuits, new materials, smart manufacturing, biomedicines, high-end equipment, and other industries.

Talent is the source of vitality for scientific and technological innovation. The annual “Science and Technology Innovation China Youth Entrepreneurship List — Star of G60 Entrepreneurship Talent List” has become an important carrier for discovering and cultivating outstanding innovation and entrepreneurship talent, exploring high-quality sci-tech start-ups, and optimizing the innovation and entrepreneurship ecology.

The government, universities, and enterprises are working together to enrich the talent reserves for scientific and technological innovation in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Donghua University, located in Songjiang University Town, established the College of Excellent Engineers in October.

The college was jointly established by government departments, universities, research institutes, and industry enterprises.

It tackles real engineering technology projects as traction and forms a new mode of cultivating excellent engineers, which is mainly characterized by the cultivation of project-based and order-oriented joint school-enterprise ventures.