China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has unveiled a comprehensive three-year plan to foster the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) startups. The ‘AI Small and Medium Enterprise Startup Support Plan (2026-2028)’ aims to cultivate a vibrant ecosystem for AI innovation, with a specific focus on nurturing a large number of high-potential AI entrepreneurial enterprises.
Key Goals for AI Startup Growth
Over the next three years, the plan targets significant advancements across several critical areas, including industry applications, data services, and intelligent computing power. The overarching objective is to nurture more than 10,000 new technology and innovation-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a goal of exceeding 2,000 ‘specialized, refined, unique, and innovative’ ‘little giant’ enterprises. The initiative also seeks to foster the emergence of a considerable number of ‘gazelle’ companies and ‘unicorn’ enterprises, signaling a strong commitment to developing AI’s next generation of market leaders.
Strengthening Computing Power Infrastructure
A cornerstone of the plan is the commitment to ‘solidifying the supply of inclusive computing power resources.’ This involves leveraging the ‘China Computing Power Platform’ to integrate and elastically configure computing power resources. This initiative aims to provide cost-effective and efficient computing support for startups. Furthermore, the plan will deepen the ‘Inclusive Computing Power Empowerment Action for SME Development,’ focusing on constructing edge computing facilities as needed and enhancing the supporting capabilities of network-computing integration. The goal is to ensure a robust supply of accessible intelligent computing power, with dedicated zones on the ‘China SME Service Network’ and the ‘China Computing Power Platform’ designed to efficiently match computing resources with the demands of startups.
Enriching Data Resources and Services
The plan also emphasizes the importance of ‘enriching the supply of high-quality data resources.’ This will be achieved through the ‘Industrial Data Foundation Action,’ which supports industry-leading enterprises, platform companies, and industry associations in forming data cooperation consortia with SMEs. These consortia will focus on building high-quality industry datasets in fields such as intelligent manufacturing, material research, and biomedicine. These datasets will be progressively opened up to AI startups in an orderly manner. The initiative also aims to cultivate high-quality data service enterprises that can offer crucial services like data consulting, governance, and annotation, thereby reducing data acquisition costs for AI startups. Additionally, pilot cities for SME digital transformation will be encouraged to enhance the mining of quality data resources and improve SMEs’ data engineering capabilities, all within a compliant framework.
Nurturing New Entities and Expanding the Startup Base
To foster a dynamic startup environment, the plan will focus on ‘cultivating new entities and expanding the startup camp.’ This includes providing inclusive support for micro-entities, such as ‘one-person companies’ and ‘super individuals,’ who engage in agile entrepreneurship using intelligent tools. The initiative will accelerate the cultivation of ‘intelligence-native’ enterprises and support emerging groups, including core contributors to open-source communities and agent developers, in exploring commercialization pathways. The aim is to identify and support a batch of new entrepreneurial talents with high growth potential. The plan also guides technology managers to focus on the discovery, evaluation, and transformation of scientific and technological achievements in the AI field, accelerating the commercial application of promising results and supporting research teams in leveraging their findings for startup ventures.
Promoting Open Source and Collaborative Ecosystems
A significant aspect of the plan is the commitment to ‘advancing the construction of an open source entrepreneurial ecosystem.’ This involves supporting the growth and development of the national-level AI open-source community, AtomGit, and strengthening the supply of high-quality open-source resources and services tailored for AI startups. The plan strongly encourages AI startups to actively participate in the open-source ecosystem, contributing resources such as open-source models, tools, and datasets. The ultimate goal is to foster an open, collaborative, co-construction, and shared ecosystem that fuels widespread AI innovation.
This comprehensive plan signals China’s strategic intent to become a global leader in AI, not just through technological advancements but also by building a robust and supportive environment for its burgeoning startup scene.
