On March 2, the 2026 High-Quality Economic Development Conference of Yuhang District, Hangzhou, was held locally. During the conference, Wang Jian, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Director of Zhejiang Lab, was appointed as the Honorary Mayor of China (Hangzhou) Artificial Intelligence Town. Wang Jian, the founder of Alibaba Cloud, was elected as an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2019, becoming the first academy member with a background in private enterprise. He pioneered a "data-centric" distributed cloud computing architecture and led the development of the independently innovated Alibaba Cloud computing platform, enhancing China's influence in the global cloud computing sector. Wang Jian delivered a speech at the conference.
Wang Jian's current affiliation, Zhejiang Lab, is one of Zhejiang Province's top ten laboratories and among the first batch of national public computing power open innovation platforms for the new generation of artificial intelligence. The lab is located in the China (Hangzhou) Artificial Intelligence Town, which opened in Yuhang in 2017. By the end of 2025, the town had attracted over 200 innovation and entrepreneurship companies in the "AI+" sector and is accelerating the development of a robust artificial intelligence industry chain.
Yuhang, recognized as Zhejiang's "top economic district," is a hub for the province's AI industry. In 2025, the district was home to 180 core AI enterprises above a designated size, with revenues exceeding 118 billion yuan. Notably, 18 generative AI models, including "Tongyi Qianwen," have completed the required filing process.
"Hangzhou has a unique innovation mechanism, and its characteristic towns are one of the most important mechanisms. I personally witnessed Alibaba Cloud emerge from Yunqi Town, and I firmly believe that the core hub for Hangzhou's 'primary center for AI innovation and development' will undoubtedly emerge from China (Hangzhou) Artificial Intelligence Town," Wang Jian stated during the appointment ceremony. He expressed seeing a growing number of pioneering enterprises and sincerely hopes more young people will become key innovators in the AI field.
On the same day, the Haina Data Hub Innovation Center (Hangzhou), a collaborative project between Yuhang District and Zhejiang Lab, commenced construction. This initiative aims to become a significant incubator and accelerator for cultivating and gathering AI technology companies. It is reported that the center will provide one-stop services for corpus production, model training, and development.
This development is part of Yuhang's broader strategy to establish itself as the "core hub for the primary center of AI innovation and development." During the conference, Yuhang District officially released its action plan for this goal. For 2026, the district targets core AI industry revenues to surpass 150 billion yuan and aims to cultivate more than five leading vertical large models.
To achieve these objectives, local authorities will implement five major actions: strengthening talent recruitment and development, consolidating resource aggregation, fostering excellence in model research and development, expanding spatial capacity, and enhancing industrial strength and quality. By leveraging high-caliber entities like Zhejiang Lab and Alibaba, the district plans to continuously attract and nurture world-leading talents in AI. It will use core talent to drive key R&D advancements, supported by annual subsidies of up to 50 million yuan each for "computing power vouchers" and "model vouchers," encouraging enterprises to utilize computing resources and AI models confidently.