City pledges bold steps to boost fintech service ecosystem

Shanghai is taking bold steps pertaining to finance and technology (fintech) services to further empower industry and economic development.

Shanghai Deputy Mayor Chen Jie said the city will enhance efforts to help fintech service providers connect with various players and drive further synergies between research institutions and businesses.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Inclusion Conference on the Bund on September 11, he noted that the ecosystem for fintech services in the city has been optimized in recent years and a number of leading technology companies, fintech infrastructure enterprises and unicorn companies are forming an influential industry cluster.

Last year, Shanghai released a new action plan to become a leading global fintech center within three to five years, and authorities are encouraging the integration of big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. Fintech solutions shall be applied to the city's financial infrastructure, facilitating their digital transformation and upgrade.

Under the theme of "Path to Innovation Growth," the opening forum brought together Turing Award winners, renowned scientists, industry leaders, investors and representatives of tech startups.

Party Secretary and President of Shanghai United Media Group Li Yun said the group has embraced the latest wave of technology upgrade and adopted digital solutions to empower media products and content creation in all directions.

"The Inclusion Conference on the Bund serves as a platform to understand cutting-edge technologies and we're fully leveraging mainstream media's role in promoting the tech for good concepts," she added.

SUMG has taken bold steps in the digital communications era with fruitful results in terms of new media impact on various digital platforms and social network sites, and at the same time also stepped up service for the city's development in the fintech sector with innovative financial news service.

The media group has established strong integrated media competency and expertise with a number of studios and innovation teams that drive forward-looking content production.

Renowned scholars, industry representatives and investors shared their views on the latest AI developments and actions to drive further synergies.

Wang Jian, founder of Alibaba Cloud, noted that the shift from open-source code to open resources represents a revolutionary change in the AI era.

Opening up data and computational resources has become an essential step in advancing AI, and AI solutions can also play a crucial role in advancing space exploration, he noted.

Zhang Hongjiang, an international member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Venture Partner at Source Code Capital, pointed out that the increasing number of AI applications and computer power are quickly driving up expansion of infrastructure, and the rise of smart agents will deeply reshape the social structure.