Haidian's "Money-Attracting" Ecosystem: Building a Self-Reinforcing Innovation Flywheel

A little more than a month’s time, Haidian has moved in succession, showcasing the ambition and strength of the city with the greatest investment value.

At the end of February, the “First Meeting of the New Year” ignited attention in the venture capital and startup community. Built on the “1+X+1” industrial ecosystem as its backbone, Haidian has accelerated the rollout of new quality productive forces, aiming directly at world-leading science parks. At the meeting, seven new policies were newly released, including the Zhongguancun Science City Technology Growth Phase IV Fund with a total scale of RMB 8 billion, the Zhongguancun Science City Results Transformation Fund with a scale of RMB 2 billion, and a coordinated allocation of industrial innovation special funds of no less than RMB 9 billion—supporting companies as they grow and helping them develop and become stronger.

Entering March, the policy push was stepped up again. The 《Several Measures of Haidian District on Further Improving the “Five Parties and Six Forces” Mechanism to Promote the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements》 was released, clearly proposing to drive more than 1,200 enterprises to transform and land within three years, and to achieve precise coverage of universities and research institutes within the district through an “one university (institute) one policy” approach. It will help turn Haidian’s advantage as an independent source of regional innovation into a winning position for the concentration of emerging industries.

Looking at China today, many cities are adding weight to hard-tech development, trying to attract entrepreneurs and capital with more abundant resources. But technological innovation and capital flows have never depended solely on “how much is given.” They depend on whether a system-wide pull is formed—ranging from policy support to service efficiency, from industrial coordination to transformation mechanisms. What truly determines whether companies can stay and grow.

In the “Tou Zhong 2024 Annual China’s Most VC-Value District Rankings,” Haidian ranks first. In 2025, Haidian District’s GDP reached RMB 1.37 trillion, maintaining strong growth momentum.

At the start of the “15th Five-Year Plan for 2026–2030” (i.e., the new phase), Haidian has continued to place its moves—accelerating from top-level design to the fund system, from mechanism innovation to industrial uptake and global coordination. A complete set of system engineering centered on “technology—industry—capital” is speeding up, and a more certain venture capital hub is taking shape.

For every three AI scientists, one is in Haidian

When you come to Haidian, entrepreneurship seems to be a matter of course.

In the early days, in Huoqing Jiayuan near the Wudaokou subway station, internet companies such as Tsinghua BBS, Storm Video, Fanfou, Meituan, Cool Xun, and Cool Music were born. In an ordinary residential community, figures like Zhang Yiming, Wang Xing, Su Hua, and Wu Shichun emerged. In that era of wild celebration of internet business models, this wave of startups helped make Meituan, Didi, JD.com, ByteDance, Xiaomi, and other major players.

And today, the new generation of AI companies—such as Zhipu, Moonshot AI, FaceWall Intelligence, and Galaxy General—are becoming Haidian’s new calling card. Data shows that more than 80% of Beijing’s artificial intelligence talent is concentrated in Haidian District, and the city’s top AI talent accounts for about 43% of the country’s total. In other words, among every three AI scientists nationwide, one is in Haidian.

When you review the backgrounds of these genius entrepreneurs, you find a highly consistent path: most of their education and research experience took place in Haidian.

For example, the founder of Moonshot AI, Yang Zhilin, completed his undergraduate degree at Tsinghua University and then went on to pursue a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University. He previously worked on large-model-related research at Google Brain. In April 2023, he returned to Beijing and founded Moonshot AI at No. 27 Zhichun Road in Haidian District.

The founder of Galaxy General, Wang He, graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Tsinghua University’s Department of Electronic Engineering. He later received a PhD degree from Stanford University in the United States. He is currently an assistant professor and doctoral supervisor at the Peking University Center for Frontier Computing Research. Today, Galaxy General’s valuation has already exceeded RMB 20 billion.

Talent is born here, gathered here—and also moves toward industrialization from here. But the question is how to turn these highly concentrated innovation resources into truly sustainable industries and investment opportunities. As Tang Chao, Deputy Director of the Administrative Committee of Zhongguancun Science City and also Deputy Mayor of Haidian District, said: “Haidian is the most concentrated region in China for science and education resources and talent resources, but there is a lack of systematic coordination among the government, universities, capital, incubation platforms, and park subdistrict towns. As a result, innovation vitality cannot be fully converted into industrial competitiveness. All factors are present, but in the past it was like iron filings that had not been magnetized—without a unified direction, and fundamentally impossible to form synergy.”

This bottleneck is being systematically resolved.

On March 16, Haidian District of Beijing released 《Several Measures of Haidian District on Further Improving the “Five Parties and Six Forces” Mechanism to Promote the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements》, with 18 hard-hitting supporting measures. It builds a bridge between the innovation source at the beginning of the technology-acheivement transformation path and industrial demand. Through the “Five Parties” coordination and organizational capabilities among Zhongguancun Science City, universities and research institutes, investment funds, incubation platforms, and science parks—plus the resonance of the “Six Forces” (organizational force, innovation force, value force, nurturing force, carrying capacity force, and market force)—it systematically constructs a “fast track” for transforming scientific and technological achievements.

At present, the “five parties and six forces” coordinated mechanism has formed seven university working groups composed of 230 people, including Tsinghua, Beihang, Beili-Tsinghua (Beijing Institute of Technology), Peking University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, University of Science and Technology Beijing, and Renmin University of China. Each group has pulled members with relevant university backgrounds.

Taking the Tsinghua working group officially established on January 26 as an example: in the past, when a research project came out of the lab, it had to run around seven or eight departments within the university and get dozens of stamps. Now, the working group directly helps the team align all internal university processes—green light all the way. According to official data, as of now the working groups have cumulatively followed 43 high-quality transformation projects in key areas such as artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, and pharmaceutical and health. After the working groups were established, they have also already driven 11 technology companies to complete registration in Haidian.

Nurturing Nearly One-Third of China’s AI Unicorns Nationally

In March this year, three companies in Haidian announced their latest financing rounds, with total amounts exceeding RMB 10 billion, drawing widespread attention.

The latest comes from Moonshot AI. According to reports from overseas media, the company has already been in contact and discussions with China International Capital Corporation (CICC) and The Goldman Sachs Group regarding potential IPO matters. Previously, media reports said the company is conducting a new round of fundraising at a valuation of USD 18 billion, seeking up to USD 1 billion (about RMB 6.9 billion). If the reports are accurate, Moonshot AI will break its 近-year domestic large-model financing record set earlier this year and become a “unicorn” company in China with the fastest valuation to surpass USD 10 billion.

Before that, on March 2, the embodied intelligence company Galaxy General announced completion of RMB 2.5 billion in A+ round financing. This is not only the highest single-round financing record in China’s embodied intelligence sector at present; it also sends a key signal—China’s National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (“Big Fund”) has rarely stepped in, marking the first layout of the embodied intelligence track.

Right after that, the physical AI simulation infrastructure company Guanglun Intelligent announced that it has completed two rounds of A++ and A+++ financing recently, with a total amount of RMB 1 billion. By then, this “AI shovel-holder” company has successfully entered the ranks of unicorns, becoming the world’s first unicorn in the field of embodied data.

Within just one month, multiple high-value financing rounds were carried out in a concentrated way. This is not only a breakthrough for individual companies, but also a concentrated “vote” by capital for Haidian’s AI industry.

If you extend the timeline further back, Haidian’s “unicorn output capacity” in AI has been evident for some time. Over the past year, Zhipu Huazhang, known as the “global large-model first stock,” and Moer Threads, known as the “China’s first domestic GPU stock,” were both born here. Even earlier, emblematic companies such as Hailu (Cambrian) Cyber, known as the “AI chip first stock,” and Fourth Paradigm, known as the “enterprise AI platform first stock,” also emerged from here and later moved to the capital markets.

In an even more representative tier of unicorn clusters, this concentration effect is especially clear. Including Zhipu Huazhang and Moonshot AI, 15 AI unicorn companies have gathered in Haidian, accounting for more than 26% of the national total—nearing one-third.

This high-density output is not a coincidence.

As one of the earliest regions in China to systematically develop the AI industry, Haidian has already built a complete ecosystem covering the “infrastructure layer—technology layer—application layer.” From large models, computing power chips, and computer vision to embodied intelligence, autonomous driving, and then to AI + applications across all kinds of industries—almost all key links are closed-loop within the region.

Especially on the “scenario side,” which determines the pace of commercialization, Haidian’s advantages stand out even more. Data shows that there are more than 280,000 market entities in the region, 265 listed companies, 54 unicorn enterprises, and nearly 10,000 national high-tech enterprises. An industrial structure has formed with 1 trillion-level, 4 thousand-billion-level, and 5 hundred-billion-level industry clusters—providing ample “testing grounds” for AI technology deployment.

This means many AI companies don’t need to “spill over” to look for application scenarios; they can complete the key jump from technical validation to commercialization and landing locally.

According to Tou Zhong Ji Chuan data: among 788 newly established AI application companies over the past four years, 146 are in Beijing, and of those Haidian accounts for as much as 58% (84 companies), making it one of the most densely concentrated areas of AI application enterprises in the country.

Building the City with the Most Investment Value

Plant a phoenix tree, and the phoenix comes.

Haidian has been able to continuously attract talent and companies, largely because its institutional design and industrial layout keep evolving. On February 28, Haidian’s “First Meeting of the New Year” drew widespread attention in the venture capital community: a set of implementation plans and an industrial blueprint systematically reviewed the district’s positioning and venture capital logic.

First is the 《Implementation Plan for Haidian District to Build the City with the Highest Investment Value in 2026》. By anchoring the entire “investment value appreciation” chain and all factors, it focuses on capital vitality, enterprise potential, talent attractiveness, asset carrying capacity, and cultural appeal. It upholds the principle of tightly combining investing in things with investing in people. It then compiles 5 major series and 32 key tasks, with each task listing the lead responsibility unit.

Among the most discussed are the Zhongguancun Science City Technology Growth Phase IV Fund with a total scale of RMB 8 billion, and the Zhongguancun Science City Results Transformation Fund with a scale of RMB 2 billion.

In detail, the Technology Growth Phase IV Fund expands further on the foundation of the first three phases. On one hand, it sets up a mother fund of RMB 7 billion, focusing on funding transformation of source results and linking key industrial platforms, and coordinating with leading market institutions. On the other hand, it allocates RMB 1 billion for direct industrial investment, precisely supporting high-growth projects in key fields and core links along industrial chains, centering on the “1+X+1” industrial ecosystem.

Meanwhile, the newly established RMB 2 billion Results Transformation Fund is even more focused on breakthroughs “from 0 to 1.” It targets original and disruptive technologies, insists on investing early and investing small, and provides long-term stable funding support for technology achievements transformation from universities and research institutes, as well as entrepreneurship by research talent.

At the same time, Ma Guangyao, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Haidian District Committee and executive vice district head of Haidian District, Beijing, also clearly stated that in 2026 the district will arrange industrial innovation special funds of no less than RMB 9 billion. Through a “companion-style” investment approach, it will support companies as they grow, helping them become bigger and stronger and advance steadily and far.

If funding is “fuel,” then industrial structure is the “skeleton.”

This year, the 《Construction Layout of Haidian District’s Modern Industrial System “1+X+1”》 was officially released and is regarded as the core framework to support future development. In the key stage of the “15th Five-Year Plan for 2026–2030,” when foundations are being laid and full efforts are being made, the significance of this system is especially important.

In terms of structure, “1+X+1” shows a clear pyramid shape: the “1” at the top is the artificial intelligence industry, serving as the core engine driving intelligent upgrades across a wide range of sectors; the “X” in the middle refers to strategic emerging industries and future industries. Based on the district’s strategic positioning and resource endowment, Haidian has selected “5+3” key industries with high growth potential as the main direction for concentrated efforts in this stage. “5” refers to five strategic emerging industries: integrated circuit design, pharmaceutical and health, commercial space, industrial software, and high-end scientific instruments—areas with the potential to break through “bottleneck” technologies and experience explosive growth. “3” refers to three future industries: embodied intelligence, quantum technology, and brain-computer interfaces—strategic areas that must be fought for.

Haidian’s competitiveness comes not only from the natural concentration of top talent and technology, but also from its continuous evolution at the level of capital supply and industrial organization. In this system, funding, technology, and industry are no longer isolated factors; instead, they are organically woven together to form an innovation flywheel that keeps strengthening itself.