As the Year of the Horse begins, Shanghai's artificial intelligence sector is already demonstrating vigorous momentum. In mid-January, the local large-model unicorn MiniMax debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, achieving a market capitalization exceeding HKD 90 billion and marking a strong start for AI enterprise listings this lunar year. Shortly after, Step星辰 announced the completion of a B+ funding round surpassing RMB 5 billion, dedicated to advancing its "AI + Terminal" strategy. This flurry of early-year activity vividly illustrates the robust development of Shanghai's AI industry.
As a leading hub for artificial intelligence development in China, Shanghai has gathered over 10,000 AI-related enterprises, with the scale of its large-scale industrial operations exceeding RMB 550 billion and maintaining a growth rate of over 30%. The 2026 Shanghai Government Work Report explicitly called for the deep implementation of the "AI Plus" initiative, aiming to add more than 50 advanced smart factories and promote the widespread application of new-generation intelligent terminals and AI agents. The trajectory of Shanghai's AI development this year is clear, moving from technological paradigm shifts to penetration in public livelihood scenarios and improvements in governance frameworks, all accelerating towards the goals of being "capable, beneficial to people's lives, and ethically sound."
**AI Agents "Go to Work": From Conversation to Action** "The next phase of AI competition centers on 'capable' intelligent agents," has become a common consensus in Shanghai's AI sector early this year. Unlike last year's focus on "conversational ability," companies in Shanghai are now collectively striving for "actionable capability," transforming AI from cloud-based language models into practical assistants grounded in real-world scenarios.
This shift is directly reflected in capital markets and industrial planning. On January 10th, MiniMax, which originated from Shanghai's Xuhui-based "Model Speed Space," officially listed in Hong Kong. Its base of 212 million global users is supported by the large-scale deployment of agent technology in scenarios like office work and education. Step星辰, having secured RMB 5 billion in funding, has made intelligent agents its core strategy. Its launched AgentOS for smart cockpits is already installed in mass-produced vehicle models, achieving nearly 40,000 sales within three months and successfully expanding overseas.
"Our goal is to integrate AI agents into every terminal, such as phones and cars, making them users' 'personal assistants,'" stated Yin Qi, the new Chairman of Step星辰 and a seasoned expert in the AI field. He highlighted that Shanghai's comprehensive industrial chain and rich application scenarios provide an ideal environment for deploying agent technology.
This proactive corporate positioning aligns with Shanghai's policy direction. Tang Wenkan, Director of the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization, noted that Shanghai will continue to promote initiatives like "Model Speed Shanghai, Model Power Gathers in Shanghai" to support the application of intelligent agents across various industries. The 2026 Government Work Report explicitly included "promoting the widespread use of new-generation intelligent terminals and AI agents" as a key measure under the "AI Plus" action.
Today, intelligent agents in Shanghai are no longer just laboratory concepts. In the business sector, WeMeet AI, the world's first agent designed specifically for business scenarios, debuted in the "Model Power Community." It integrates four core capabilities, including AI simultaneous interpretation and AI note-taking, offering one-stop services for conferences, exhibitions, and business travel. In the industrial sector, Shanghai is cultivating a team of frontier deployment engineers to support companies in developing industrial agents, thereby enhancing the digital and intelligent transformation of manufacturing.
From "chatting" to "doing," Shanghai's AI is demonstrating its practical value through concrete actions this year.
**Digital Transformation in Public Livelihood: AI Integrates into Daily Life** If the industrial deployment of intelligent agents represents high-end, hardcore breakthroughs, then the application of AI in public livelihood sectors is a down-to-earth, warm practice. This year, AI in Shanghai is accelerating its move from industrial parks into neighborhoods, integrating into education, healthcare, consumption, and various other aspects of daily life, becoming a tangible "life assistant" for the public.
Early in the Year of the Horse, Shanghai's "AI + Education" initiative reported positive news. The Songjiang-based company Zhiqi Technology officially launched an "AI + STEM Education Integration Platform." Utilizing multi-agent collaborative teaching, the platform has already been adopted by several schools in Shanghai. In a course titled "Physical Fitness Measurement and Evaluation" at a winter care program in Caolu Town, teachers can input keywords for the AI to automatically generate standardized lesson plans that integrate multidisciplinary knowledge. During student practical sessions, the system can validate data and standardize operations in real-time. For data analysis, the AI can guide the generation of charts and perform automatic comparisons. The platform also deeply integrates resources from the Yangtze River Delta, connecting with over 20 off-campus STEM laboratories in districts like Minhang, Songjiang, and Pudong, allowing teachers and students to book high-end equipment like 3D printers and robots online.
In healthcare, AI is addressing the challenge of diagnosing complex and rare diseases. Recently, a joint team from the School of Artificial Intelligence at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Xinhua Hospital affiliated with the university's medical school introduced DeepRare, the world's first agent-based evidence-informed reasoning diagnostic system for rare diseases. This provides a Chinese solution to the global problem of difficult diagnosis and high misdiagnosis rates for rare conditions. Clinical data shows that DeepRare achieved a top-1 accuracy rate of 57.18% for pure phenotypic diagnosis, an improvement of 23.79 percentage points over the best international model. It changes the dilemma where genetic testing was often essential for diagnosis and has surpassed the diagnostic recall rate of specialist doctors with a decade of experience in rare diseases.
"Our goal is to use AI to shorten the long, arduous journey to diagnosis for the often-overlooked minority, ensuring every rare disease is recognized and every patient receives proper care," said Professor Sun Kun from Xinhua Hospital.
During the Spring Festival, AI's warmth was felt in consumption and entertainment scenarios. From agilely performing martial arts robots on stage to hyper-realistic digital humans generated by self-developed large models, from Volcano Engine supporting global real-time interaction to the Doubao model delivering hundreds of thousands of "tech gift packs" to households, this year's CCTV Spring Festival Gala truly earned its title as the "first AI Spring Festival Gala." In some large Shanghai shopping malls, embodied intelligent robots served as "New Year shopping consultants," not only planning shopping routes for consumers but also writing Spring Festival couplets on the spot. Alipay's "AI Pay" became the world's first AI-native payment product to surpass 100 million in both transaction volume and user numbers during the holiday, marking its official entry into large-scale commercial use.
From reducing the burden in education to making healthcare more accessible, from enhancing consumption quality to increasing life convenience, AI in Shanghai this year is using the power of technology to add more happiness to people's lives.
**Strengthening Governance "Guardrails": Fastening the "Safety Belt" for AI Development** As AI technology advances rapidly, the "guardrails" for safety and ethics must be strengthened simultaneously. The selection of "AI garbage content" as the 2025 Word of the Year by Merriam-Webster serves as a warning for Shanghai's AI development. This year, Shanghai is accelerating the construction of a distinctive, comprehensive AI governance system, encouraging innovation while ensuring technological development does not "deviate from its course."
"AI is like the Monkey King, possessing extraordinary power, but it also needs legal 'tightening curses'," remarked Cheng Jinhua, a member of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, capturing the essence of AI governance. AI governance became a hot topic at this year's Shanghai Two Sessions. Zhan Tingting, a deputy to the Shanghai Municipal People's Congress, suggested establishing a "Municipal AI Content Security Detection Center" through collaboration between local research institutions and leading enterprises to create a security防线 integrating monitoring, early warning, and traceability. Liu Chen, a deputy from合合信息, proposed implementing a "negative list" management system for cross-border data transmission city-wide, achieving a balance between openness and control.
These suggestions are gradually being translated into governance practices. Reportedly, Shanghai has revised the "Shanghai Regulations on Promoting the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry." These regulations define behavioral red lines and ethical norms for AI industry development, requiring relevant entities to comply with laws and regulations and enhance ethical awareness to ensure healthy and secure industry growth. On the technical standards front, Shanghai has initiated safety certification for large-scale pre-trained models, urging enterprises to establish robust AI safety and ethics systems.
Government guidance, expert recommendations, and corporate self-discipline together form the collaborative "force" behind Shanghai's AI governance. Companies and institutions like Tencent and the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology have jointly released the domestic financial industry's first large model standard in Shanghai, setting a benchmark for regulated development. Shanghai allocates RMB 1 billion annually in computing power vouchers, data corpus vouchers, and model vouchers, supporting enterprise innovation while using policy to guide a greater focus on safety and ethics.
From industrial breakthroughs with intelligent agents to comprehensive empowerment in public livelihood scenarios, and the ongoing refinement of the governance system, Shanghai's AI development in the Year of the Horse is charting a path that "balances innovation with regulation and achieves a win-win for both industry and public livelihood." Tang Wenkan stated that Shanghai will continue to leverage its four major advantages—industrial clusters, urban application scenarios, talent supply, and the industry-finance ecosystem—to make artificial intelligence a powerful driving force for high-quality urban development and a better life for its people.
For Shanghai's residents and businesses, this Year of the Horse brings not just technological surprises from AI, but also opportunities for development and enhancements to daily living.