Shanghai Pushes Digital Economy With Focus on Blockchain and AI

Shanghai has issued plans to boost its digital economy by doubling down on sectors including blockchain technology and AI infrastructure, as it steps up efforts to compete with other Chinese tech hubs such as Beijing and Shenzhen.

In a new five-year plan for building “digital Shanghai”, the municipal government said on Wednesday that it aimed to promote the use of blockchain technology across various fields of the economy, including financial services, shipping and logistics, and green initiatives.

Increasing blockchain adoption was the only mandatory target among 11 concrete goals laid out in Shanghai’s new plan. Use cases for the distributed-ledger technology had covered 60 per cent of its economy by 2025, and the city aimed to achieve a 100 per cent blockchain adoption rate across key industries by 2030, according to the policy paper.

The plan clarified the “fundamental role” of blockchain in building “digital Shanghai”, said Peng Peng, executive chairman of the government-affiliated think tank Guangdong Society of Reform.

Shanghai was among a handful of cities that could assume the responsibilities and roles of being a hub in a national blockchain network, thanks to advantages including its economic scale, data volume, degree of internationalisation and digital industrial base, Peng said.

Shanghai also vowed to build a “solid digital intelligence foundation”, which would involve systematically laying out future communication infrastructure and boosting its computing-power offerings.