Guangdong targets 'smart' industries

South China's Guangdong province will spare no effort in promoting and accelerating the coordinated development of manufacturing and service industries in 2026, according to the province's top official.

Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, urged the vast number of entrepreneurs and practitioners in the province to embrace the advent of the intelligent era, enhance the level of coordinated development of the two sectors based on the artificial intelligence technology foundation.

The move aims to jointly shape the overall advantages of Guangdong's "advanced manufacturing plus modern services" and jointly foster new forms of the intelligent economy, upgrading Guangdong from a major manufacturing province to a leading smart manufacturing hub.

Huang, also Party secretary of Guangdong province, made his remarks at the opening ceremony of the Guangdong Provincial High-quality Development Conference in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, on Tuesday.

"Promoting the coordinated development of manufacturing and service industries is a crucial step to embrace the wave of technological advancement and gain the initiative for the future," he said.

The coordination between the two industries has driven the manufacturing capacity and service efficiency to achieve multiplicative and exponential growth, greatly advancing the development of new quality productive forces, said Huang.

Guangdong, with a population of over 129 million, boasts advanced digital and intelligent technologies, massive data resources and abundant application scenarios, he said.

Huang urged relevant departments and units in the province to try to cultivate more trillion-yuan and 100-billion-yuan industrial clusters through helping traditional competitive industries increase scale, improve quality and efficiency, expand and strengthen emerging and future industries and foster new industrial pillars via the integrated development of industrial clusters and chains in the months to come.

According to Huang, Guangdong, China's economic powerhouse, plans to grow its GDP to about 25.8 trillion yuan ($3.69 trillion) by 2035, achieving the level of moderately developed countries and regions.

Last year, Guangdong's regional GDP hit 14.58 trillion yuan, up 3.9 percent year-on-year, maintaining its top position in the nation for 37 consecutive years.

Encouraged by Huang's speech, entrepreneurs responded positively to calls for growth.

Liang Hua, chairman of Huawei Technologies, said the company would continue to increase investment in R&D, and meet the rapidly growing demand for computing power through its series of products and solutions, building an open AI ecosystem centered on Ascend — AI chip series — and continuously creating value for customers.

Focusing on key industries and scenarios, Huawei will build an industry agent-enabling platform, and through technological and scenario innovation, it will support partners in empowering the intelligent transformation of all sectors of society, he said.

Xu Yangtian, founder and chairman of Shein, a Chinese fast fashion retailer, said the deep integration of manufacturing and services has shaped its global business landscape.

"By leveraging the new business model of cross-border e-commerce and taking data as the link, Shein seamlessly integrates user demand insights, supply chain responsiveness, and a global service network into the entire manufacturing chain, while continuously exploring new paths for the integrated development of manufacturing and services," said Xu.

The deep integration of "manufacturing embedded in services and services driving manufacturing" has enabled Shein to build a dual competitive moat of "speed plus precision" and grow into a leading enterprise in the global fashion industry, Xu said.

Xu promised Shein would invest more than 10 billion yuan to build its intelligent supply chain headquarters, jointly forging a world-class fashion industrial cluster in Guangdong, promoting "Made with Intelligence in Guangdong" as a new benchmark for the global fashion industry in the coming months.

In addition to government officials and policymakers, the event attracts more than 200 influential entrepreneurs and business representatives, as well as over 60 experts and scholars.