Shanghai promotes its software, information services

Shanghai recently introduced a series of measures designed to boost the high-quality development of its software and information services industry — harnessing the sector's potential as a driving force for stable economic growth in the city.

The measures — in effect from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2028 — have been categorized into the following four key areas:

01 Stimulate vitality of business entities

Encouraging districts to grant incentives to premium software and information services enterprises located in the districts with annual revenues exceeding 2 billion yuan ($278.88 million) and growth rates exceeding 1.2 times the city's average growth rate.

Providing one-time grants ranging from 5 million to 30 million yuan to small and medium-sized enterprises, based on their annual main business revenue milestones.

Providing one-time incentives ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 yuan to fast-growing micro and small enterprises, depending on their revenue scale and growth performance.

02 Support AI-empowered industry upgrade

Assisting cloud service providers in building model-as-a-service platforms, providing a certain proportion of computing power subsidies to innovative entities that use related services and reducing costs of using and deploying models for various types of entities.

Encouraging enterprises in the said sector, large language model companies and enterprisers in industries including the online new economy, finance, education and medicine sectors to cooperate in the research and application of industry models — providing funding subsidies of up to 30 percent of investments in projects within the supported scope.

03 Improve support policies for cultivating new growth drivers

Releasing a software demand list. For eligible software application projects, purchasers may receive application subsidies of up to 80 percent of the procurement contract amount.

Supporting the establishment of digital content industry clusters in districts where conditions permit; conducting timely policy trials for treating game products developed by foreign-invested game companies in Shanghai as domestic games; and supporting digital content projects to conduct copyright pledge financing trials.

04 Cut costs and alleviate burden for enterprises

Implementing policies such as pre-tax deductions of R&D expenses for high-quality software companies.

Providing rolling support to key R&D projects through special funds for promoting high-quality development of industries and strategic emerging industries at the municipal level — with the highest individual project support ratio reaching 30 percent of R&D expenses.

Offering support through major municipal-level sci-tech special funds for eligible strategic product R&D projects — with the highest individual project support ratio reaching 50 percent.