Inside Shanghai's Five Centers | International economic center

To strengthen its functions as international centers spanning economic, financial, trade, shipping, and science and technology innovation, Shanghai has recently released a set of cases highlighting progress in each area.

This edition focuses on three cases that reflect the city's latest advances as an international economic center.

Case 1: Segmented production of biological products

Shanghai has taken the lead in piloting segmented production of biological products, advancing the nation's first domestic segmented production project for the Class I innovative drug, CANbridge's Velaglucerase-beta for Injection, marketed as Gaurunning.

This program helped attract 3.14 billion yuan ($446.05 million) in new investments from Roche and Daiichi Sankyo to establish cross-border segmented production facilities in the city.

To ensure that the reform continues to deliver long-term impact, segmented production has been incorporated into the Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Administration of Drugs and Medical Devices.

The pilot program has optimized the allocation of biopharmaceutical resources and strengthened support for enterprises expanding their presence in the city.

Case 2: Value-added telecom services

To further open up China's telecom sector to foreign investment, Shanghai has launched pilot operations in value-added telecom services, boosting China's cloud computing and related industries.

Under the pilot, foreign-invested companies may operate wholly owned telecom services in the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone and Pudong New Area. These services cover internet data centers as well as online data processing and transaction processing.

To date, nine foreign-invested enterprises have received approval under the pilot program, with business activities encompassing digital healthcare, fintech, and new types of human resources services.

Case 3: Training ground for humanoid robots

Shanghai has launched China's first training ground for heterogeneous humanoid robots in Pudong New Area in January.

Heterogeneous humanoid robots are developed by different manufacturers and vary in design, functions, technical architectures, and application scenarios.

To move toward commercial applications, humanoid robots require large volumes of high-quality data to train and optimize their algorithms. The training ground functions as a testbed for data collection and scenario validation.

By focusing on key sectors such as intelligent manufacturing, public services, and specialized operations, the facility improves data efficiency, reduces redundant data collection, and lowers barriers to large-scale industrial deployment.

To date, more than 100 robots from multiple enterprises have started training at the site, with model adaptation success rates exceeding 95 percent.