Beijing's E-Town to build a global AI hub by 2030

The Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area — known as E-Town — aims to become a globally influential AI hub capable of generating 200 billion yuan ($29.6 billion) in core AI industry output by 2030 through a district-wide artificial intelligence ecosystem, according to Kong Lei, Communist Party of China secretary of the development zone.

Rather than focusing solely on nurturing AI companies, the area plans to embed AI across industries, infrastructure and urban governance through its "AI+" initiative, making AI a key driver of economic growth and city management.

"In the AI era, competition is no longer about a single technology," Kong said. "It involves the entire value chain, including foundational capabilities, critical hardware, essential software, core data resources, application ecosystems and governance capacity."

He said the area is determined to seize what it sees as a strategic opportunity created by AI to reshape technological innovation, industrial development and regional competitiveness.

E-Town generated a GDP of 401.2 billion yuan in 2025, with an average annual growth rate of 12.1 percent. Although it accounts for just 1.37 percent of Beijing's land area, it contributed about 40 percent of the capital's industrial added value, according to Kong.

To support its ambitions, E-Town is strengthening its capabilities in both frontier research and industrial infrastructure.

Since the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), it has accelerated research into next-generation technologies, promoting the integration of AI with quantum science, 6G communications and space technologies.

"We have pioneered innovative technologies and paradigms, such as quantum-AI integration and space-air-ground integrated networks, laying the groundwork for future industrial innovation," Kong said.

Semiconductors are another strategic priority. Leveraging its well-established integrated circuit industry, E-Town is building a complete ecosystem spanning chip design, manufacturing, packaging, testing and computing power while expanding into emerging fields such as scenario-defined and industry-specific AI chips.

"This will help remove some of the key bottlenecks restricting AI development," Kong said.

One example is ChangXin Memory Technologies, which operates one of its major production facilities in E-Town.

The company, whose AI memory chips have attracted growing market attention, drew further interest from investors following its initial public offering in late July.

To further strengthen computing capacity, the district is building a 100,000-petaflop intelligent computing cluster, providing what Kong described as a critical hardware foundation for future AI development.

Beyond hardware, Kong said E-Town is equally focused on expanding AI applications across the real economy. It is advancing integrated vehicle-road-cloud infrastructure while developing the full data value chain, from generating high-quality multimodal datasets to establishing trusted data circulation and governance systems.

"We have already established a solid foundation for full-domain AI applications," he said. "Our next step is to accelerate the construction of a national pilot zone for data elements."

E-Town is also creating more real-world testing scenarios for AI technologies. It has hosted two world-class humanoid robot half-marathons and plans to introduce more forward-looking demonstration events.

The district will also host the World Robot Conference in mid-August and the World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference in October, two flagship events expected to showcase the latest advances in robotics and intelligent mobility.