Innovative Industrial Belt to integrate universities and city

Beilin district of Xi’an, Shaanxi province in Northwest China, is making great efforts to integrate its universities with the city to speed up high-tech and economic development for both sides.

Within only 23.36 square kilometers Beilin district has 17 colleges and universities, 131 scientific research institutions, 10 state key laboratories and six national engineering research centers, peopled by more than 30,000 scientific researchers of all kinds. It has the most intense convergence of intellectual talents and scientific and technological achievements possibly in the country and certainly in the city and province.

In September 2018, the Xi'an Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government jointly issued "Several Opinions on Supporting the Development of an Innovative Industrial Belt around the Universities in Beilin district”, anticipating construction of such a belt as a major new driver of new-mode high-quality urban development.

Silicon Valley, based on Stanford University and high-tech small and medium-sized companies, became the cradle of high-tech in the United States and the namesake of the world’s high-tech clusters by integrating science, technology and production.

Today's Beilin district wants to learn from Silicon Valley. Through the construction of an innovative industrial belt around universities, a new way of cooperation between them and nearby localities, and a new mode of "university plus" development, it hopes to create an intellectual-intensive park without fences. The open style will ideally and innovatively integrate university science and entrepreneurial technology and give birth to a new "Silicon Valley" in Xi'an.

Twenty-three -year-old Tang Ling started his own Internet plus copyright company named Xi'an Zhigui and Internet Technology Co., Ltd. while studying at the university and joined the innovation industry belt.

In the industrial belt, Tang's company was incorporated into the "Longteng Plan" system of Beilin district, enjoyed the site support policy in the Xi'an Innovation and Design Center, and built a block chain incubator within the belt.

Tang's company was launched in August 2016. In early 2017, it received Angel round financing and completed tens of millions of A round financing in July, 2017.

Today, Tang's company has registered more than one million works online, and has more than 10 million database reserves as well as more than 2,000 registered users. Its valuation has reached 250 million yuan($ 36.81 million）. With branches in Beijing, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Seoul, Singapore and London, as well as other locations, the company has become a veritable multinational enterprise.

In fact, there are many entrepreneurs with university genes like Tang Ling in Beilin district, which is rich in science and education resources.

In January 2013, Beilin district and the Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology jointly launched construction of an innovative university-industrial belt with 10 local schools including Xi'an Jiaotong University.

With five-years' development, the path of urban co-construction and school-land cooperation has become clearer.

By 2021, the Innovation Industry Belt around the Universities will be built into 10 professional parks, which will house 20 large-scale science and technology service enterprises with annual income of over 100 million yuan. It will also have welcomed 120 small science and technology enterprises and support 1000 scientific and technological personnel. The talents will set up science and technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises, cultivate 3000 start-ups, and realize an added value of 20 billion yuan for the modern service industry.