Over the past four years, Wuhan's software industry has consistently ranked among the top two for growth rate among China's 14 major software cities, with its scale projected to surpass the 400 billion yuan threshold in 2025.

It was revealed at a press conference held by the Wuhan Municipal People's Government Information Office on June 2nd that the period of the 15th Five-Year Plan is a crucial phase for Wuhan's software industry to transition from scale expansion to quality enhancement, with an ambitious target to exceed an industry scale of 800 billion yuan during this period.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has recently outlined a clear directive to launch a special action plan for "Artificial Intelligence + Software," aiming to accelerate the R&D and application of intelligent programming, foster new business models such as Model-as-a-Service and Agent-as-a-Service, and promote the intelligent upgrade of foundational and industrial software.

It is reported that Wuhan has already gathered 22 listed software companies, 4 enterprises ranked among China's Top 100 Software Companies, and 3 among China's Top 100 Internet Companies.

In the last three years, newly registered software enterprises have accounted for one-seventh of all newly registered businesses in Wuhan, bringing the total number of software enterprises in the city to over 140,000.

Key Initiatives for AI Adoption

An official from the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology stated that Wuhan will guide enterprises to embrace artificial intelligence from three key directions.

The first is to promote the AI-enablement of software products. The city will encourage and guide software enterprises to research and develop software products and solutions with AI capabilities, enhancing product value and competitiveness to meet the intelligent transformation needs of various industries.

By 2026, the goal is to cultivate 150 outstanding industry-specific AI agent products, develop 10 domestically renowned vertical large models, and guide 100 software system integrators deeply engaged in vertical industries to transform into AI application service providers.

The second initiative is to promote AI-driven software development. Support will be provided for leading enterprises and qualified large-scale enterprises to establish more than 10 "super software factories," leveraging large models and AI agents to reconstruct R&D processes and create reusable industry-specific AI R&D paradigms.

Small and micro enterprises will be guided to transition towards the OPC (One-Person Company) model, utilizing AI tools to simplify development processes and tackle lightweight AI applications and supporting service products.

The city aims to achieve full coverage of AI-assisted development for 1,000 large-scale software enterprises by 2026 and incubate over 100 AI testing tool products.

The third direction is to promote AI-driven enterprise management. Enterprises will be supported in implementing intelligent upgrades for various business management software, comprehensively embedding AI agent applications.

Companies are encouraged to develop their own AI management software, expanding into scenarios such as intelligent office work, intelligent approval, and intelligent operations and maintenance.

The target for 2026 is to achieve an adoption rate of over 80% for management-related AI agents across the city's software industry.

Upcoming Software Innovation Conference

To support Wuhan's development as a "China Software Famous City," the city is scheduled to host the 4th Software Innovation and Development Conference from June 10th to 11th.

Themed "Intelligence Ignites the New Era of Software, Co-creating a New AI Ecosystem," the conference will focus on national software industry development strategies, new trends for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and local practical experiences.

The event will feature one main forum, seven sub-forums, and a software innovation achievements exhibition.

Sub-forum topics will cover software-hardware synergy, independent and secure systems, the "Yujiashan" forum on industrial software, the Harmony OS ecosystem, AI agents and OPCs, RISC-V integration and innovation, and "AI + Software" convergence.

To date, leading enterprises including China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, China State Shipbuilding Corporation, China Electronics Corporation, Moore Threads, Kingsoft Software, and Kylin Software have confirmed their participation, with total attendance expected to exceed 800 people.