A recent closed-door strategy session in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, brought together over 20 prominent entrepreneurs and experts alongside more than 10 government department heads. The three-hour meeting, held at the city's Shuan Security Tower, zeroed in on a single pivotal question: how can Wenzhou establish itself as a pioneering city for AI innovation and become the region's premier hub for AI application demonstrations?
In the era of artificial intelligence, what gives Wenzhou its edge to lead, and where is it headed? The exchange of ideas has crystallized into a clear strategic vision. At the national level, systematic efforts are advancing the "AI+" initiative, opening a new chapter in China's path to intelligent development. Zhejiang Province has also explicitly emphasized that building an innovative province aligns perfectly with the arrival of the AI era, positioning AI as both a defining hallmark and a core pillar of progress.
Riding this wave, Wenzhou is seizing AI as its "greatest certainty" in shaping the future. The city has established a municipal-level AI bureau and constructed a "3412" work system, all aimed at building an AI innovation and development pioneer city and becoming the top city for AI application demonstrations. "AI is not merely an industry; it represents an entire era. It isn't just one track, but the foundation for all tracks," said Zhang Zhenfeng, a member of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Standing Committee and Wenzhou's Party Secretary, who convened the meeting. He outlined Wenzhou's systematic push toward "eight pioneering initiatives" to accelerate the creation of an optimal ecosystem for AI innovation, inviting global talent to pursue their AI ambitions in Wenzhou.
Building the Foundation: The Advantage Lies in Solid Groundwork
For Wenzhou, the journey to becoming an AI innovation pioneer begins with a fundamental question: why can we lead, and where exactly does that leadership start? Wenzhou's edge doesn't come from chasing fleeting trends, but from identifying its own unique opportunities. As the only city in China to fully undertake six national pilot projects for data infrastructure construction, Wenzhou has amassed over 150 billion pieces of public data and secured access to 54 categories of national-level data sources, spanning sectors like judicial and medical insurance. This substantial data reservoir provides a formidable foundation.
The city's second key asset lies in its robust industrial base. Wenzhou boasts deep-rooted industrial clusters in electrical equipment, footwear and apparel, auto parts, pumps and valves, smart equipment, and life sciences. Its comprehensive "5+5+N" modern industrial system lays a solid groundwork for AI implementation. When vast datasets meet real-world industries, Wenzhou's forward steps are backed by substantial strength. This advantage has not gone unnoticed by Wenzhou entrepreneurs operating elsewhere. Li Gaiteng, chairman of Flyco Electrical Appliance, commented that his hometown possesses unique advantages in AI development, calling it the most valuable "testing ground" for AI applications.
A significant portion of Wenzhou's "eight pioneering initiatives" targets strengthening the foundational infrastructure. The first priority is advancing compliance guarantees to address corporate hesitancy. Wenzhou plans to build a collaborative system for secure data circulation and AI industry growth, establish full-process recording and audit mechanisms for cross-domain data flow, seek pilot programs for convenient cross-border data movement, and explore a multi-stakeholder governance model involving government, industry, and market forces. The goal is to become the "first-choice destination" for AI companies nationwide seeking compliance solutions.
Next comes pioneering Token services, ensuring that AI becomes accessible and affordable for businesses. Competition in the AI sector is rapidly shifting from a focus on model parameters and raw computing power to a broader contest involving Token production efficiency and usage costs. Wenzhou is developing a closed-loop Token service ecosystem, which could prove decisive. Upstream, it leverages green energy, with clean energy accounting for over 45% of installed capacity and offshore wind resources representing half of Zhejiang Province's total. Midstream, it empowers through platforms like the "Word Universe" one-stop service platform, which integrates over 100 mainstream large models and has attracted more than 6,500 registered users. Downstream, it focuses on application scenarios, building an AI computing service hub supported by its strong manufacturing sector and diverse land, sea, and air application contexts.
"We need to deliver AI capabilities to SMEs as seamlessly as water and electricity, lowering the barrier to entry," stated Li Songze, head of Volcano Engine's general industry division in Wenzhou, emphasizing that public service platforms can spread AI's technological dividends to more businesses. Recognizing data as a strategic resource whose quality determines AI's potential and depth of integration, Wenzhou is also pioneering data supply. The city aims to streamline the data value chain, transforming raw data into usable materials, products, and final assets, and build an integrated data factory covering collection, storage, cleaning, labeling, evaluation, and usage, positioning itself as a key producer of high-quality data and a source of standards nationally.
Driving Growth Upward: Prioritizing Application
In this era, innovation without AI integration means missing the ticket to the future, and industries that fail to incorporate AI will lack the new engine for transformation. As a manufacturing powerhouse, Wenzhou offers a vast landscape for AI to empower every sector. The potential applications are numerous: integrating AI into footwear and apparel for flexible manufacturing; leveraging AI in the new energy sector to capture the energy digitalization track; embedding AI into eyewear for enhanced smart wearables; incorporating AI into electrical equipment for integration into smart energy grids; adding AI to auto and motorcycle parts for participation in the vehicle-road-cloud collaborative supply chain; and applying AI to pet products to meet the demand for digital pet care services.
Wenzhou is treating "scenario opening" as a pioneering move, adhering to the principles of "real scenarios, real problems, real payments, and real replication." It is launching an "AI Empowering Ten Thousand Enterprises" campaign focused on opening up application scenarios, implementing a first-purchase, first-use system, and identifying projects that are "small-scale, viable for payment, and replicable." To ensure these scenarios can effectively embrace AI, bridging the communication gap between supply and demand is crucial. AI industry translators are key to this, acting as the "adhesive" between technology providers and businesses. Wenzhou is offering free AI readiness assessments through these translators, who deliver tailored implementation plans. Ye Xiaofeng, an AI industry translator in Wenzhou, agrees, noting this approach allows translators to participate fully in the entire process from needs diagnosis and solution design to resource integration and project implementation.
Behind every application scenario, model capability determines the depth of AI's use and its ability to empower industries. Notably, Wenzhou maintains a clear head regarding the competition over general-purpose models. Instead of competing on parameter scale, the city leverages its strengths—dense private enterprises, distinct niche industries, and rich application scenarios—to explore a distinctive development path centered on "nurturing models with data, empowering industries with models, and achieving synergy between the two." In this pursuit, Wenzhou will focus on key industries like smart electrical equipment, auto parts, and medical devices. It plans to establish "model-data resonance" innovation consortia led by chain-owner enterprises, supported by universities and research institutes, and involving AI technology service providers. Simultaneously, it will create mechanisms for the continuous iteration of industry-wide general knowledge and specialized datasets, build industry-level shared spaces for this resonance, and use it to catalyze industrial transformation.
Wenzhou's strategic moves on scenarios and model-data synergy align with the development directions of many companies. Zheng Dong, a doctoral student at Zhejiang University and co-founder of Uniubi Intelligent Technology, is one such example. "Since relocating to Cangnan, we have accelerated the aggregation of multi-scenario industry data, planning to serve over 10 industry users and adapt to more than 15 specific application scenarios," he said. He looks forward to seeing his company's products implemented in areas like municipal facilities, property services, and smart manufacturing safety, nurturing the local ecosystem through homegrown applications.
Expanding Horizons: Cultivating the Ecosystem
In the AI era, competition between cities is increasingly shifting towards nurturing application scenarios and building robust ecosystems. Wenzhou's focus on platform empowerment is a direct response to this trend. The China (Wenzhou) Data Security Port has already established ten industrial communities and implemented a "three-chief system" (city department heads as "community chiefs," district leaders as "executive chiefs," and chain-owner enterprise leaders as "community presidents"). It also supports an OPC (One Person Company) ecosystem community, fostering a fertile ground for entrepreneurship that attracts talent to stay and return. Building on this, Wenzhou will deepen the development of these ten industrial communities, refine the "three-chief" operational mechanism, precisely match resources for specific tracks, and vigorously cultivate the SOPC (Super One Person Company) entrepreneurial model, opening up AI application demand lists and enterprise "micro-orders" to the OPC community.
As innovation density within these industrial communities grows, AI "scenarios" are gradually extending from factories and parks into communities and households. Wenzhou plans to pioneer future living experiences, offering citizens new dimensions in smart, healthy, innovative, and recreational lifestyles. To turn this vision into reality, Wenzhou will follow a four-step path: "facility renovation, pilot testing and transformation, scenario implementation, and application empowerment." It will issue an open list of scenarios for the construction sector, promote the integration of edge computing, smart sensors, and AI agents into urban renewal projects, and accelerate the development of high-quality datasets for the building industry. The goal is to make Wenzhou a source of innovation, a demonstration site for applications, and a hub for the industrial ecosystem in "AI + future living."
Looking beyond the immediate environment to the broader ecosystem, all counties and districts in Wenzhou have introduced their own AI action plans, creating a collaborative working pattern of "municipal coordination, departmental synergy, and county-level linkage." Wenzhou is advocating for regional linkage as a pioneer, implementing routine cross-departmental and cross-regional scheduling mechanisms, and establishing unified lists of enterprises, models, applications, and terminals to facilitate regular supply-demand matching. It will also coordinate resources such as funds, space, scenarios, data, computing power, and models, and establish cross-county mechanisms for resource allocation, ensuring that promising projects "are born in the Data Security Port and grow across the entire city."
The ripple effects of AI implementation are attracting a wave of young, opportunity-seeking dreamers. "The new generation of Wenzhou youth should be bold and tenacious. Our young team will maintain an enterprising spirit and continue to refine our products," said Tang Yanwei, the 21-year-old founder of Youxueban (Beijing) Education Technology Co., Ltd., during an interview, radiating youthful determination. This enthusiasm is unique to the young, and it perfectly sets the stage for an era of mutual achievement in the age of AI.