Tianhe District's gross domestic product (GDP) surpassed 701.72 billion yuan in 2025, maintaining its position as Guangzhou's top-ranking district for the 19th consecutive year. This milestone establishes a new foundation above the 700 billion yuan mark, setting a clear goal to become a trillion-yuan-level urban district during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. The district is accelerating its pace to achieve new heights and deliver outstanding results. As the central urban area of a megacity, Tianhe is charting a new course in a pivotal year, adopting a development strategy that emphasizes balanced growth in commerce and industry, alongside integration between manufacturing and modern services. It is accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system with distinctive Tianhe characteristics and advantages, leveraging its solid foundation where the financial sector, software industry, and artificial intelligence industry account for approximately half of Guangzhou's total in these fields. The district is speeding up the deep integration of producer services with advanced manufacturing.
Starting the year with a sprint and maintaining vigorous effort throughout, Tianhe is leading the way. From a dual-core leadership model to the integration of the two sectors, from unleashing innovation potential to activating strategic depth, Tianhe is using spatial restructuring to spearhead industrial growth. It is enhancing the quality of modern service industries such as finance, the digital economy, scientific research services, and high-end professional services, while simultaneously accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries. Shouldering its responsibility as a major economic district, Tianhe aims to make even greater contributions to the city.
The confidence stemming from a 700 billion yuan starting point is well-founded. Guangzhou ZWSOFT Co., Ltd., a company rooted in Guangzhou for over two decades, relocated its headquarters from Zhujiang New Town to Tianhe Intelligent City half a year ago. As the first listed company in China focusing on R&D and design-oriented industrial software, ZWSOFT has established a national and even global R&D hub for industrial software in Tianhe, driving efforts to overcome key technological challenges in this field. In the highly monopolized "crown jewel" sector of industrial software, ZWSOFT managed to carve out a breakthrough. Back in 2010, when Tianhe proposed building a "famous software city," ZWSOFT's founding team seized the opportunity, acquiring American VX technology and rapidly launching China's first 3D CAD software with an independent kernel, filling the gap for domestic high-end 3D design software. Today, ZWSOFT is a leader in its sector, holding a 9.6% market share in the domestic CAD market, ranking first among domestic providers, with its products sold in over 90 countries and regions.
Reflecting on the journey from the company's new headquarters building, Liu Yufeng, General Manager of ZWSOFT, expressed gratitude for Tianhe's consistent support. "ZWSOFT's independent breakthrough began with the critical support Tianhe provided in terms of industry-academia-research ecosystems, industrial chain collaboration, and policies. It was Tianhe District that gave us the courage to invest over 30% of our annual revenue in tackling fundamental underlying technologies," Liu remarked. This symbiotic relationship between government and enterprise is precisely the foundation for Tianhe's sustained high-quality development. Tianhe is home to 33 universities and colleges, along with 43 provincial or ministerial-level research institutions, 4 Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao joint laboratories, 9 national-level engineering technology research centers, and 13 state key laboratories. Any enterprise can easily access intellectual and innovation resources here. The concentration of high-end service resources, coupled with efficient access to policy benefits, continuously channels global industrial resources to businesses. R&D subsidies directly target bottlenecks in core technologies, creating an ecosystem that combines an innovation rainforest with fertile ground for entrepreneurship.
This strength is also embedded within its bustling office towers. As one of the areas in South China with the highest concentration of premium office buildings, Fortune Global 500 companies, headquarters enterprises, financial institutions, and business service organizations, the Tianhe Central Business District (CBD) alone boasts 90 "billion-yuan buildings," attracting 259 investment projects from 178 Fortune Global 500 companies. Within the core CBD of this megacity, numerous high-quality star enterprises thrive. Guangzhou Usmile Technology Co., Ltd. is a unicorn company ranked among the top manufacturing enterprises in Tianhe District. Its brand, usmile, leads the Chinese online electric toothbrush market in sales revenue, establishing itself as an innovation leader in its niche.
Why would a manufacturing company choose to establish itself in a bustling CBD? Chen Jianyong, Vice President of Usmile Technology, explained that the company primarily focuses on high-value-added core segments like R&D, design, and brand marketing—the "smile curve." It was precisely Tianhe's advantages as Guangzhou's central district—its cluster of headquarters economy, concentration of high-end talent, and superior business environment—that attracted the company to locate in a premium office building. Guangzhou Cemtrop Technology Development Co., Ltd. also chose Tianhe. Its wholly-owned subsidiary secured a plot in the core area of Tianhe Intelligent City, investing 3 billion yuan to build the Cemtrop headquarters and a high-end radar intelligent manufacturing base project, laying out high-end intelligent radar production lines along with related laboratories and R&D centers.
"Tianhe District concentrates the core resources of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, possesses a pioneering innovative spirit, and has formed an entrepreneurial ecosystem with an efficient 'technology-industry-capital' cycle, which is crucial for the growth of technology-based enterprises," said Cao Xiangyuan, Co-founder of Cemtrop Technology. He noted that over the years of being based in Tianhe, the company has tangibly benefited from the positive interaction between "effective government" and "efficient markets." From policy and talent support to financial backing and open application scenarios, Tianhe consistently provides ample nutrients for enterprise growth.
In 2025, Tianhe attracted 260 high-quality industrial projects, double the number from 2024. These included five projects valued at tens of billions of yuan, such as those from CITIC, CCCC, Dewu, and Ouhua, as well as 11 investment projects from Fortune Global 500 companies like Midea, Haier, CSCEC, AVIC, Alibaba, and BYD. The significant development of headquarters enterprises and quality projects moving into parks and high-rises strengthens the core of Guangzhou's manufacturing sector. The influx of enterprises underscores Tianhe's unique advantages as the central district of a megacity: not only does it contribute nearly 22% of Guangzhou's total economic output, playing a significant "pillar" role, but its influence is particularly prominent in the producer services sector, radiating across the city and the Greater Bay Area. Data shows Tianhe's GDP reached 701.718 billion yuan in 2025, ranking first in Guangzhou for 19 consecutive years, and it has been among the top three in the CCID Research national Top 100 Innovative Districts for five consecutive years. Among Guangzhou's ten service industries with added value exceeding 100 billion yuan, Tianhe ranks first in seven.
The "Tianhe Model" of integrated manufacturing and services has been taking shape for some time. In the hall of the Guangzhou (International) Sci-Tech Achievement Transformation Tianhe Base, a worn-out "28-inch bar" bicycle is quietly displayed, commemorating a legendary period of reform. In the 1980s, professors from the环五山 area worked diligently from Monday to Friday, and on Saturdays, they left their laboratories, cycling on these bicycles between their labs and private enterprises in the Pearl River Delta, pioneering the "Saturday Engineers" model—an early form of industry-academia-research cooperation. Over forty years, this model has evolved into one of the most dynamic paradigms of industrial integration in the Greater Bay Area. Leveraging Tianhe's unique resources, it has spawned numerous legendary stories and figures.
Particularly after the 1990s, Keyun Road, stretching about 11 kilometers, began influencing the rapid advancement of the national IT industry. In 1997, Zhang Xiaolong coded the first lines of Foxmail on the 10th floor of the Southern Communications Building, later developing WeChat, which has since influenced the global social networking landscape. Around the same time, Ding Lei founded NetEase, building an empire spanning portals, gaming, email, and music, starting from Keyun Road. After graduating from South China University of Technology, He Xiaopeng's first job was located in Tianhe Software Park, and it was also on Keyun Road that he transitioned from software to automobiles.
Recalling the startup days, Ding Lei, Founder and CEO of NetEase, often praises Tianhe: "Tianhe has always been imbued with an innovative gene of 'daring to break and establish.' As Guangzhou's largest district and a leading economic district nationally, its business environment of 'releasing water to nurture fish' has allowed NetEase to develop healthily to this day." He Xiaopeng, Chairman of Guangzhou Xiaopeng Motors Technology Co., Ltd., also regards Tianhe as his "lucky place," having chosen it for both of his entrepreneurial ventures. "As Guangzhou's top economic district, innovation powerhouse, and urban living room, Tianhe possesses rich innovation resources, a superior business environment, and efficient government services. The 'Keyun Road Spirit'—characterized by boldness, willingness to learn from mistakes, strong sense of responsibility, and acting as a ferryman—inspires and encourages generations of innovators and entrepreneurs," he said.
Today, elements of technological innovation extend northeast along Keyun Road, converging to form a new highland at Tianhe Intelligent City. This area clusters over 2,500 tech enterprises, including
Tianhe's advantage lies not only in its significant share of the city's economic scale but also in the pronounced driving and radiating capacity it has developed in high-value-added segments like finance, technology, and professional services. By deeply integrating financial resources, scientific and technological wisdom, talent dynamism, and manufacturing foundations, it has built a prosperous ecosystem where advanced manufacturing and modern services thrive together, mutually reinforcing each other, gradually forming a "Tianhe Model" for high-quality development. Tianhe is gradually forming a new pattern centered on "chain leaders," with R&D brains located in Tianhe and intelligent manufacturing bases radiating across the city. The AI "strongest brain" for
Driven by industrial software and AI, Tianhe connects all segments of the manufacturing chain. Sieyuan Information empowers thousands of manufacturing enterprises with full-process digital twins and intelligent decision-making through its "model-based intelligent manufacturing operation platform." Supor drives the restructuring of the home furnishing industry with AI and enables flexible factory production, helping to achieve a "what you conceive is what you get" manufacturing service闭环 nationwide. Tianhe gathers 70% of the city's licensed financial institutions, one-third of accounting firms, one-third of law firms, and 70% of human resources agencies. It pioneered a "credit + finance + innovation" service system in the city, leveraging the leading roles of entities like CITIC AIC and the Guangdong Provincial Strategic Emerging Industry Investment Guidance Fund, jointly establishing equity investment funds to channel financial resources into the real economy.
In 2025, three major capital platforms were established in rapid succession: CITIC AIC, with a registered capital of 100 billion yuan, officially set up operations, filling the gap for long-term equity investments by bank-affiliated institutions in South China and signing agreements with 12 enterprises on its inauguration day, becoming an important bridge connecting indirect financing with direct investment. The 50 billion yuan Guangdong Provincial Strategic Emerging Industry Investment Guidance Fund settled in Tianhe, contributing 4 billion yuan to a national venture capital guidance fund within its first week, leveraging social capital to aid provincial industrial upgrading. A subsidiary of the provincial state-owned capital platform, Hengjian Investment, also established a presence in Tianhe in 2025, injecting new vitality into the regional capital ecosystem.
Currently, Tianhe District is leveraging its cluster advantages in producer services like finance, new-generation information technology, and high-end professional services to empower the city's industries to leap towards higher-end, smarter, and greener development.
The development insights from the two sectors' mutual empowerment are evident. In 2017, Kuro Game, which had already built a reputation in the二次元 game genre after three years of operation, officially moved its company to Tianhe. They were attracted by Tianhe's location and talent aggregation effect. Situated in the absolute center of Guangzhou, Tianhe offers convenient business travel and fast information exchange, attracting a large number of enterprises. At that time, Keyun Road was home to many leading game companies, as well as numerous small and medium-sized game companies and upstream/downstream service providers specializing in areas like art outsourcing, sound effects production, and publishing platforms. "The dense industrial ecosystem provided us with natural soil for development, reducing costs for talent recruitment and resource integration. Talent mobility among peer companies within the district facilitated experience sharing. Through continuous iteration of project management experience and development technology innovation, it accelerated our product development efficiency, ultimately helping the company win the TGA 2025 Players' Voice award, known as the 'Oscars of the gaming industry'," said a relevant负责人 from Kuro Game. Wang Juan, President of the Guangzhou Game Industry Association, stated, "Back then, the industry rightly called Keyun Road 'China's No. 1 Gaming Street'."
Today, Tianyuan Street in Tianhe District, where Keyun Road is located, hosts 15,000 enterprises with about 70,000 employees, achieving an annual revenue scale of 350 billion yuan. It boasts 248 high-tech enterprises and 110 "Specialized, Refined, Unique, and New" SMEs. Keyun Road is just a microcosm. Like most central urban areas of Chinese megacities, Tianhe inevitably faced challenges such as tight industrial land supply and insufficient development space during the city's early growth. "As the city scale expands and the economic aggregate continues to increase, it becomes necessary to reconsider industrial planning, spatial layout, and even proactively shift the development mode from scale expansion to connotation enhancement," said An Ran, Director of the Bay Area Economy and Industrial Planning Research Institute at the China Development Institute. In his view, this is an inevitable process for promoting the continuous optimization of urban functions and a necessary part of driving high-quality economic and social development.
Tianhe is the link and hub point in Guangzhou's strategic layout of "Three Veins, Three Axes, Three Cores," possessing advantages in resource aggregation, rich application scenarios, and a concentration of innovative talent. Maximizing the conversion of innovative elements within urban space into industrial outcomes is undoubtedly a top priority. Urban industry, characterized by compact spatial use, high innovation content, high talent concentration, and密集的人流互动,恰好 fits Tianhe's strengths and represents a commonality among most central urban areas of Chinese megacities. Urban industry largely breaks down the traditional divide between "manufacturing" and "services," embodying a typical model of mutual empowerment between the two sectors. Tianhe is promoting urban renewal with meticulous care, building a refined urban area and expanding industrial space. By adding new "six horizontal, seven vertical" transportation arteries, it is打通 development channels and串联 innovation platforms. Through spatial restructuring, Tianhe is accelerating the development of high-end manufacturing like intelligent equipment and robotics, and biomedicine, aiming to build a future city that is innovative, livable, beautiful, resilient, civilized, and smart.
In 2025, Tianhe accelerated the construction of a "dual-core leadership, axial belt drive" pattern involving the Central Business District and the Central Technology District. Focusing on digital finance and the digital economy, it is building a new growth pole in the Financial City. 16 projects continued construction, 16 plots were under accelerated investment promotion, with 7 more projects scheduled for completion and operation within the year, and industrial orientation for 20 buildings totaling 740,000 square meters. Focusing on the "AI + Robotics" industry, it is speeding up the planning and construction of Guangtang Science and Innovation City. Within the year, 1 million square meters of new sci-tech carriers commenced construction, 11 more industrial land parcels were released, 15 application scenarios were opened, the环五山sci-tech resources were utilized effectively, the government-industry-university-research chain was打通, and plans were made to build a "Sci-Tech Special Zone." Focusing on creating a Guangdong Olympic Sports Cultural Event and Performance Demonstration Zone, efforts were made to accelerate the rise of the Olympic Sports City.
Tianhe's approach is to lead industrial growth through spatial transformation.
In the view of Song Xiangqing, Vice President of the Academy of Government Management at Beijing Normal University and Vice President of the China Society of Commercial Economy, once a region achieves breakthroughs in the digital economy and AI technology, and its manufacturing sector moves towards high-end, intelligent, and green development, the integrated development of manufacturing and services gains a solid foundation and becomes a necessity. With the continuous development of new quality productive forces, the integration of the two sectors naturally becomes its core carrier. This accurately depicts the current situation in Tianhe where manufacturing and services are converging: industrial growth provides the foundation for pulling the development of service industries; empowered by high-end services like data services, industrial software, and modern finance, Tianhe's industries can accelerate their climb towards both ends of the "smile curve."
Song Xiangqing suggests that for Tianhe, the key to integrating the two sectors still lies in focusing on the supply of local high-end services, especially in areas like industrial software, R&D design, and financial services. Simultaneously, it should actively promote the integrated development of cross-border services within the Greater Bay Area, emphasizing local enterprises and cross-border collaboration to achieve a leap from scale coordination to value integration.
How can Tianhe achieve the trillion-yuan level by the 15th Five-Year Plan period? During the recent Spring Festival, construction sites at several key projects in Tianhe were bustling with activity: pile drivers rising and falling, crane arms moving, the roar of machinery composing a symphony of New Year endeavor... This vividly illustrates Tianhe's approach of starting the year with a sprint and maintaining intensity throughout, accelerating the pace to achieve new results. Having surpassed the 700 billion yuan economic aggregate milestone, Tianhe has set a clear goal: striving to become the city's first trillion-yuan-level urban district by 2030.
Where does this confidence come from? Tianhe's answer is "balanced development of commerce and industry, integration of the two sectors." As a major economic district, Tianhe not only possesses a solid "family fortune" where its finance, software, and AI industries account for about half of the city's total in these sectors, but is also exploring new paths for the deep integration of producer services and advanced manufacturing, continuously empowering enterprises throughout their lifecycle development and global layout operations.
Chen Jianyong has deep personal experience with this. Usmile, under Usmile Technology, has its products covering over 30 countries and regions globally. This rapidly growing new-type enterprise relies on Tianhe's mature cross-border e-commerce ecosystem, where完善的 industrial chain support—from logistics and warehousing to cross-border payments—has significantly lowered the barrier to going global. "The dense concentration of design companies and software information service providers in Tianhe provides strong support for the intelligent hardware development and APP interaction design of our products, enabling us to quickly upgrade from 'manufacturing' to 'intelligent manufacturing.' Meanwhile, Tianhe's position as the central district of Guangzhou, an international exchange center, helps us establish a high-end brand image from China's core business district in the international market," Chen said.
Kuro Game's "Wuthering Waves," developed over four years with an investment of hundreds of millions of yuan, became an instant hit upon its global release, ranking among the top global mobile games. Previously, Apple CEO Tim Cook tried the game and specifically praised this "Made in Tianhe" product. Tianhu District's game industry revenue reached 65.35 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 10.1%, contributing significantly to Guangzhou's status as "China's No. 1 Gaming City."
Founded in Tianhe, Guangzhou in 2017, Tec-Do has grown alongside the city for nine years, focusing on empowering Chinese companies to "go global" with high quality through AI technology. "Guangzhou Tianhe is accelerating the construction of a '12126' modern industrial system and prioritizing support for emerging industries like artificial intelligence. Addressing common challenges faced by companies going global, such as complex overseas markets, significant cultural differences, and difficulties in data insight, we are forging new intelligent engines for the global brand journey of these enterprises," said Li Shuhao, Founder and CEO of Tec-Do. He stated that Tec-Do is exploring innovative models for AI-empowered industrial globalization, helping enterprises in Tianhe and nationwide establish their brands in the global market through AI technological capabilities.
Moving forward, Tianhe plans to expand its "new space" for high-quality development on one hand, led by the dual cores of the CBD and CTD, creating a new growth pole in the Financial City, focusing on the "AI + Robotics" industry, accelerating the planning and construction of Guangtang Science and Innovation City, and building the Guangdong Olympic Sports Cultural Event and Performance Demonstration Zone to accelerate the rise of the Olympic Sports City. On the other hand, it will continue to expand and strengthen modern services, aiming to increase the number of licensed financial institutions to over 310, achieve software industry revenue exceeding 260 billion yuan, and high-end professional services revenue exceeding 170 billion yuan, providing ample "financial vitality" and professional services for manufacturing upgrading.
Possessing half of Guangzhou's financial industry, a key question for Tianhe is how to break away from the path dependency of a traditional financial stronghold and truly become a core engine driving new quality productive forces, serving as an important sample for observing financial transformation in core districts of first-tier cities. Sun Jianqiang, Dean of the School of Economics and Finance at South China University of Technology, indicated that the next phase for Tianhe's finance requires not only continuing to expand the supply of quality credit resources, especially technology credit, but also shifting towards parallel empowerment through equity and credit support, combining short-term liquidity with long-term companionship, gradually building a new pattern where bank credit, equity investment, and industrial capital work together synergistically.
"In the next stage, Tianhe should focus more on attracting more renowned domestic and international investment institutions and venture capital platforms to gather and establish presence, amplifying the siphon effect of leading capital to form a良性生态 where institutions, projects, and capital interact dynamically," Sun Jianqiang said. "On one hand, it should skillfully use equity investment tools to deeply cultivate and nurture local potential enterprises; on the other hand, it should fully leverage the leveraging effect of 'using investment to promote introduction,' precisely attracting 'chain leader' enterprises from key industrial chain segments and high-growth potential projects to settle, efficiently converting 'capital flow' into 'industrial flow,' and injecting momentum for Tianhe's goal of becoming a trillion-yuan-level district."