(Yicai) July 7 -- Shanghai is turning into a paradise for incubating and growing hard-tech companies, with an average of over 320 new such firms registered a day last year.

Shanghai has 64 hard-tech startups on the Hurun Global Unicorn List and 73 on the Hurun Future Unicorns: Global Gazelles Index, according to data released at a media research event in the city yesterday.

In addition, Shanghai has 19 high-quality incubators, which have helped more than 410 companies and have over 390 projects in reserve, Luo Dajin, director of the local Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, said at the event.

Compared to ordinary incubators, high-quality ones focus more on “hard tech” projects. By focusing on modern industrial systems, cutting-edge technologies, and future industries, they support and promote the transformation of disruptive technological achievements and accelerate the incubation of hard-tech firms.

As an important carrier for the integration of tech and industrial innovation, incubators connect the innovation and supply chains and horizontally integrate the capital and talent chains. The thriving incubator industry has cultivated a group of influential high-tech companies as well as specialized, sophisticated, distinctive, and innovative‌ enterprises.

Professional incubation of tech companies is not simply about gathering similar entrepreneurial firms or innovative projects in the same space, but rather it requires incubator companies to focus on the upstream and downstream of the supply chain, carry out continuous and in-depth innovation, tech incubation, and industrial cultivation of related enterprises, providing them with professional vertical incubation services, Luo noted.

For example, the SMC Shanghai Foundation Model Innovation Center in Xuhui district, China’s first dedicated incubator and accelerator for artificial intelligence models, has attracted more than 300 developers to settle in and gathered over 1,700 AI companies. The number of AI model registrations in the district accounts for 60 percent of the city’s total.

The 895 Incubator in the Zhangjiang Science City, located in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, has incubated more than 1,500 companies as of the end of last year, successfully cultivated over 170 high-tech firms, and more than 140 specialized, sophisticated, distinctive, and innovative‌ enterprises.

Shanghai is also committed to connecting the entire chain for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, improving the systematic service layout of such achievements from concept verification platforms, high-quality incubators to pilot platforms, and establishing a mutual promotion mechanism between basic research and achievement transformation, helping a group of incubated firms grow and eventually go public, Luo stressed.

With the help of the system for the transformation of sci-tech achievements, 16 Shanghai-based hard-tech companies went public in Hong Kong in the first half of this year, Luo pointed out. As of the end of last month, 95 firms based in the city have listed on its Nasdaq-style Star Market, Luo added.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev