"Nanjing Regulations on the Promotion of Artificial Intelligence Industry Development and Innovative Applications" Passed, Nation's First Systematic Support System for OPC Enterprises

On October 28, 2026, the Regulations on the Promotion of the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry and Innovative Applications of Nanjing were deliberated and adopted at the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 17th Nanjing Municipal People's Congress. The regulations codify a large amount of frontline practical experience into institutional norms, providing fundamental support for Nanjing to build a highland for artificial intelligence development. Leveraging the certainty of the rule of law to drive industrial innovation

Nanjing is the country's first "China Software City" and Jiangsu's only national pilot zone for innovative AI applications, with a deep industrial foundation for developing artificial intelligence. According to statistics, in 2025 the city's software and information services industry became its first trillion-level industrial cluster, the revenue of the core artificial intelligence industry grew by 26%, the scale of related industries exceeded 300 billion yuan, and its computing power development ranked sixth in the country. The "AI·Mirror World—Nanjing Artificial Intelligence Ecological Block" has gathered nearly 500 AI enterprises and more than 50,000 practitioners, and more than 50 application scenarios such as AI clinics, AI water services, AI firefighting, and AI restaurants have been implemented one after another.

The rapid pace of industry development calls for legal safeguards to keep up. Benchmarking against pioneering cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou, many enterprises inevitably harbor concerns as they race ahead. "Some enterprises report problems such as the current difficulty in obtaining and using public data, insufficient opening of scenarios, and outdated regulatory concepts, which greatly affect the overall development of the artificial intelligence industry. They hope that timely, high-quality legislation will provide legal guidance and rigid support for industrial development and give enterprises more certain confidence," said a relevant person in charge of the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology.

At the municipal people's congress held earlier this year, several Nanjing Municipal People's Congress deputies jointly submitted a proposal to establish and accelerate local legislation, coordinate solutions to prominent issues such as support mechanisms, data supply, scenario opening, and ethical security, and upgrade policy guidance into stable and predictable legal safeguards. This proposal aligned with the macro background of Nanjing's in-depth promotion of the "AI+" initiative and its effort to build an upgraded version of the national pilot zone for innovative AI applications, and it also promptly responded to the actual needs of artificial intelligence industry development. The Standing Committee of the Nanjing Municipal People's Congress subsequently listed the formulation of the regulations as a key legislative task of the year, responding to the industry's call with high-quality legislation and safeguarding the cultivation of new quality productive forces. Open legislation soliciting advice from think tanks and visiting AI enterprises

Legislation extensively absorbed opinions and suggestions from all parties. The drafting team traveled to advanced regions such as Shanghai and Hangzhou to study and learn from legislative experience, and visited think tanks such as the School of Artificial Intelligence of Nanjing University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Nanjing University of Science and Technology to seek advice.

Chen Kun, a professor at the Law School of Nanjing University and executive director of the Digital Law Research Center, proposed that the main task of the regulations should be to promote scientific and technological innovation, industrial development, and integrated applications, integrate Nanjing's data, computing power, talent, and scenario resources, and at the same time provide local implementation interfaces for national and provincial artificial intelligence governance systems. He also put forward suggestions on the principles of artificial intelligence industry development and innovative applications, the definition of artificial intelligence, and the responsible entities for supporting the deep integration of artificial intelligence technology and the robotics field.

The drafting team also visited leading enterprises, entrepreneurship parks, and application scenarios to listen extensively to opinions. Chen Zhe, vice president of Jiajie Technology Co., Ltd. and director of the Jiangsu Artificial Intelligence Society, combined industrial practice and proposed targeted suggestions such as establishing a unified mechanism for accepting enterprise demands, tilting fiscal funds toward enterprise research and development, and supporting scenario lists with budgets. Chen Hui, Jiangsu head of public sector at Volcano Engine, based on industry experience, proposed practical suggestions such as refining the sandbox regulatory mechanism and clarifying data circulation norms. After research and demonstration, these opinions were absorbed into the text of the regulations to varying degrees.

Focusing on legislative technique, Liu Xiaobing, a professor at the Jiangsu Rule of Law Construction Research Base, put forward professional opinions such as optimizing work principles, clarifying relevant concepts, improving the wording of provisions, and strengthening alignment with provincial regulations and other laws and regulations. Artificial intelligence industry legislation is also a key legislative project of the provincial people's congress standing committee this year. To better align upper and lower levels, the drafting group also took the initiative to communicate. The legislative working body of the provincial people's congress standing committee fully affirmed Nanjing's drafting of the regulations, believing that the regulations have accurate positioning, distinctive features, and strong institutional innovation, providing useful reference for the province's legislation on promoting the artificial intelligence industry, and designated it as a high-quality cultivation project for legislation of cities with districts. Institutional innovation addresses development pain points

The reporter saw that the adopted regulations make systematic arrangements around key links such as scientific and technological innovation, industrial development, integrated applications, factor guarantees, and security governance, and the institutional design closely follows Nanjing's reality and highlights local characteristics.

In response to the insufficient adaptability of the traditional one-way model of "university research and development, enterprise transformation" in the artificial intelligence era, the regulations reconstruct the innovation logic, clearly improve the collaborative research system with enterprises as the main body, the market as the orientation, and deep integration of industry, academia, research, and application, support innovation entities such as research institutes, institutions of higher learning, and enterprises in carrying out basic theoretical research and frontier exploration in the field of artificial intelligence, undertake or participate in major national, provincial, and municipal science and technology projects, and develop an independent, controllable, and collaboratively operating artificial intelligence technology system around intelligent computing chips, algorithm models, embodied intelligence, and other aspects.

The regulations propose that industry application research projects should in principle involve enterprises or end users. This is an institutional design that fits Nanjing's industrial reality. In the China (Nanjing) Software Valley, the "Text-to-Informatization System Large Model" developed by Youtong Information Technology Co., Ltd. has passed national filing, and Youtong Technology has also become the country's first filed enterprise in this field. In 2025, its new AI business revenue reached more than 50 million yuan, an increase of about five times year on year. This is precisely a typical case of enterprise-led research and development iteration.

Artificial intelligence OPCs are a distinctive feature of AI entrepreneurship in Nanjing, and the regulations also contain targeted provisions, explicitly stating that the city will "build a full-factor support system covering computing power, data, algorithms, capital, carriers, scenarios, and supply chains, and provide talent, innovation, and other policy support for artificial intelligence 'one-person companies,'" thereby elevating grassroots exploration into legal provisions.

At present, Nanjing has established nearly 30 OPC communities. For example, the QinCheng OPC Community in Jianye District, as the largest OPC community in the province, offers support such as rent reductions or exemptions for up to two years and one-click access to large-model computing power, and has already gathered more than 30 startup teams; the "Zhineng · Gongfang" in the Software Valley of Yuhuatai District has launched the city's first OPC micro-seed fund, with a scale of 20 million yuan. After the resident enterprise Nanjing Zhenlaishi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. received its first investment of 1 million yuan, it launched a 2.0 version prototype of a pet smart locator in just over ten days; the Zijin Xingchen · OPC Community in the Jiangning Development Zone is equipped with a concept validation fund pool of tens of millions of yuan and provides free workstations for up to three years and 20 public technical service platforms. The regulations institutionalize these practical experiences and also explicitly establish an entrepreneurial fault-tolerance mechanism, providing support such as employment services and social security continuity for entities whose startups fail due to market risks, adjustments to technical routes, and other reasons, creating a development atmosphere that encourages innovation and tolerates failure.

The approach of creating an atmosphere that encourages innovation and tolerates failure is reflected in many places. For example, in strengthening financial support, the regulations provide that state-owned capital shall implement classified comprehensive evaluation of artificial intelligence industry funds, "not using the profit or loss of a single fund project or a single year as the assessment basis," guiding capital to invest early, in small projects, for the long term, and in hard technology, and providing patient capital for technological research and development. In strengthening talent guarantees, the regulations break away from the orientation of focusing solely on "top-tier algorithm talent" and propose introducing innovative talent and cross-disciplinary compound talent, improving mechanisms such as school-enterprise co-construction, two-way talent flow, and independent professional title review.

Scenarios are the "soil" for the implementation of artificial intelligence technology. The regulations change the approach of simply listing application fields and instead build a complete closed loop of "discovering demand—publishing scenarios—paid pilots—evaluation and acceptance—innovative procurement—citywide replication." Among other things, they provide for regularly publishing lists of supply and demand for artificial intelligence application scenarios, supporting the construction of city-level comprehensive major scenarios, industry-wide integrated scenarios, and high-value small-entry scenarios, and driving the large-scale and commercial application of new artificial intelligence technologies and products. During legislation, full consideration was given to the actual situation of scenario application, requiring scenario lists to simultaneously specify lead units, open data interfaces, pilot budgets, acceptance standards, and procurement methods, so that enterprises can connect precisely.

It is understood that after the regulations are formally implemented, Nanjing will also simultaneously formulate supporting policies, strengthen departmental responsibilities, follow up with publicity and interpretation, and conduct assessments of implementation effects, transforming institutional designs such as inclusive computing power, data supply, scenario opening, and sandbox regulation into specific rules that are operable, assessable, implementable, and effective.

Source: Huaribao · Jiaohuidian reporter Chen Yuefei. Nanjing legislation supports the innovative development of the artificial intelligence industry.

On October 28, the " " (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") was deliberated and adopted at the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 17th Municipal People's Congress and came into effect after being submitted to the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress for review and approval. The "Regulations" solidify a large amount of frontline practical experience into institutional norms, injecting strong rule-of-law momentum into Nanjing's efforts to build a highland for artificial intelligence development.

Nanjing is the country's first "China Software City" and the only national pilot zone for innovative application of artificial intelligence in Jiangsu Province, with a deep industrial foundation for developing artificial intelligence. According to statistics, in 2025 the city's software and information service industry became its first trillion-level industrial cluster, the revenue of the artificial intelligence core industry grew by 26%, the scale of related industries exceeded 300 billion yuan, and the level of computing power development ranked sixth in the country. As the industry races ahead, the need for rule-of-law guarantees has become more prominent. At the municipal people's congress held at the beginning of this year, the Standing Committee of the Nanjing Municipal People's Congress listed the formulation of these regulations as a key legislative task for the year.

The regulations adopted this time consist of seven chapters and 62 articles, and make systematic arrangements around key links such as scientific and technological innovation, industrial development, integrated application, factor guarantees, and security governance. The institutional design is closely tied to Nanjing's realities and highlights local characteristics.

In response to the insufficient adaptability in the artificial intelligence era of the traditional one-way model of "university research and development, enterprise transformation," Chapter 2 of the regulations reconstructs the innovation logic and explicitly improves the collaborative research system with enterprises as the main body, the market as the orientation, and deep integration of industry, academia, research, and application. The regulations provide: "Support innovation entities such as research institutes, institutions of higher learning, and enterprises in carrying out basic theoretical research and frontier exploration in the field of artificial intelligence, undertaking or participating in major national, provincial, and municipal science and technology projects, and developing an autonomous, controllable, and collaboratively operating artificial intelligence technology system around intelligent computing chips, algorithm models, embodied intelligence, and other aspects."

Artificial intelligence OPCs are a distinctive feature of AI entrepreneurship in Nanjing. Article 23 of the Regulations stipulates: "Build a full-factor support system covering computing power, data, algorithms, capital, carriers, scenarios, and supply chains, and provide talent, innovation, and other policy support for artificial intelligence 'one-person companies,'" elevating grassroots exploration into legal provisions. It is reported that Nanjing has currently established nearly 30 OPC communities: the QinCheng OPC Community in Jianye District is the largest OPC community in Jiangsu Province, having gathered more than 30 startup teams; the "Zhineng · Gongfang" at the Software Valley in Yuhuatai District has launched the city's first OPC micro-seed fund, with a scale of 20 million yuan; the Zijin Xingchen OPC Community in the Jiangning Development Zone is equipped with a concept validation fund pool of ten-million-yuan scale, providing free workstations for up to 3 years and 20 public technology service platforms. The Regulations institutionalize these practical experiences, and at the same time clearly establish an entrepreneurial fault-tolerance mechanism in Article 25, providing employment services, social security continuity, and other support to entities whose startups fail due to market risks, adjustments to technical routes, and other reasons, creating a development atmosphere that encourages innovation and tolerates failure.

In terms of talent support, the Regulations break away from the orientation of focusing solely on "top-tier algorithm talent." Article 48 proposes introducing innovative talent and cross-disciplinary composite talent, and improving mechanisms such as school-enterprise co-construction, two-way talent flow, and independent professional title evaluation. In terms of financial support, Article 46 clearly stipulates that state-owned capital shall implement classified comprehensive evaluation of artificial intelligence industry funds, "not using the profit or loss of a single project of a fund or a single year as the assessment basis," providing patient capital for technological research and development. (Xue Ling)

Source: Yangtse Evening Post. Xu Jinhui led a team to carry out legislative research on the Regulations of Nanjing Municipality on the Promotion of the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry and Innovative Applications.

In order to carry out high-quality legislative work on the Regulations of Nanjing Municipality on the Promotion of the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry and Innovative Applications, the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress adhered to scientific legislation, democratic legislation, and legislation in accordance with the law, deeply practiced whole-process people's democracy, fully used the four-in-one legislative work mechanism, extensively solicited opinions and suggestions from all parties through multiple channels and at multiple levels, and fully incorporated industrial practice, expert wisdom, and grassroots public opinion into the design of laws and regulations.

Since July, Xu Jinhui, deputy secretary of the Party group and deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Municipal People's Congress, has led responsible comrades from the Legislative Affairs Commission, the Finance and Economics Commission, the Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, and the Municipal Bureau of Justice to go deep into the front lines of industry, OPC communities, institutions of higher learning, and other places to carry out a series of legislative research, seeking advice from enterprises, experts, and the grassroots, and making every effort to polish practical and effective local regulations.

During the research, the research team successively visited Xuanwu District, Jianye District, Yuhuatai District, Lishui District, Jiangbei New Area, and other places, entering industrial carriers and key enterprises such as China (Nanjing) Software Valley, Nanjing Alibaba Center, Xuanwu Large Model Factory, Jiangsu Artificial Intelligence International Talent Innovation Port, Siemens Numerical Control, and Changan Automobile New Energy Factory, to inspect on site the development of the artificial intelligence industry, technological research and development, and scenario applications, to listen face to face to the opinions and demands of business entities and industrial parks, and to carefully sort out the practical problems in industrial development.

Adhering to the approach of visiting doors to seek advice, the team deeply connected with university scientific research forces. The research team successively went to the School of Artificial Intelligence of Nanjing University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Nanjing University of Science and Technology to solicit opinions on site, held discussions and exchanges with university experts and scholars and representatives of startup enterprises, and conducted discussions around key topics such as large model research and development, talent training, industry-university-research transformation, and technology ethics, fully absorbing the cutting-edge wisdom of university scientific research and providing intellectual support for the design of the Regulations.

In order to broaden the coverage of opinion solicitation, this legislation comprehensively used various methods such as on-site visits, discussions and seminars, written inquiries, and commissioned research. A four-in-one symposium on artificial intelligence legislation and an expert demonstration meeting were held, inviting experts from universities such as the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing University, and Southeast University, as well as representatives of leading enterprises and industry institutions such as ZTE Corporation and the Provincial Artificial Intelligence Society, to jointly study and demonstrate the text of the Regulations article by article, gathering professional forces in multiple fields such as law, algorithm research, computing power construction, and scenario applications, and strengthening professional support for scientific legislation. At the same time, the standing committees of the people's congresses of relevant districts such as Qinhuai District, Yuhuatai District, and Jiangning District were commissioned to visit and solicit opinions from key research institutes and enterprises such as China Electronics Technology Group, Huawei Cloud Computing Nanjing Branch, Zijinshan Laboratory, and Estun; written opinions were solicited from the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress, the Social and Legal Affairs Committee of the Municipal CPPCC, the standing committees of the people's congresses of all districts, the Jiangbei New Area Management Committee, and all 48 grassroots legislative contact points in the city, building a multi-level and wide-coverage democratic legislative work pattern.

During the research and discussion, Xu Jinhui pointed out that artificial intelligence is an important track for developing new quality productive forces, and carrying out local legislation on artificial intelligence is an important measure for Nanjing to leverage its advantages in the software and artificial intelligence industries and safeguard high-quality industrial development through the rule of law. Legislative work must firmly grasp the local legislative principles of "non-contradiction, distinctive features, and operability," base itself on Nanjing's industrial foundation and urban positioning, highlight local industrial characteristics, focus on the bottlenecks and pain points in the development of the artificial intelligence industry and innovative applications, adhere to a problem-oriented approach, and strive to solve practical problems in industrial development. It is necessary to scientifically clarify the responsibilities of the government, enterprises, scientific research institutions, and other various entities, strengthen the implementability and operability of institutional design, and ensure that laws and regulations are well-founded, feasible, and truly effective, truly empowering Nanjing's artificial intelligence industry innovation and development with good laws and good governance.

In the next step, the legislative research team will systematically sort out and summarize the various opinions and suggestions collected through research, discussions, and written solicitation, fully absorb the wisdom of all parties, further revise and improve the text of the Regulations, continue to run whole-process people's democracy through the entire legislative process, and strive to formulate a high-quality local regulation that fits Nanjing's reality, reflects the characteristics of the times, and helps industrial upgrading.

Source: Legislative Affairs Office of the Nanjing Municipal People's Congress

Attachments:

Attachment 1: "Regulations of Nanjing Municipality on the Promotion of the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry and Innovative Applications (Draft)" (Draft for Comments).doc

Attachment 2: Drafting Explanation of the "Regulations of Nanjing Municipality on the Promotion of the Development of the Artificial Intelligence Industry and Innovative Applications (Draft)" (Draft for Comments).pdf

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