Zhongyuan Longzihu Wisdom Island in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is home to a slew of high-tech businesses.

Riding the wave of China's rapid progress in the digital economy, Zhengzhou of Henan province is stepping up efforts to establish itself as a national nucleus for innovation and entrepreneurship and shape the city's new competitiveness.

Located in the Zhengdong New District, a planned mixed-use new city in eastern Zhengzhou, Zhongyuan Longzihu Wisdom Island, which was inaugurated in 2021, stands as the first provincial-level standardized innovation and entrepreneurship center in Henan. It is the flagship hub of Zhongyuan Science and Technology City's blueprint for innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as the core area of the National Big Data (Henan) Comprehensive Pilot Zone.

After making great progress over the past few years, the wisdom island has achieved preliminary development results and become a bench mark for the construction of innovation and entrepreneurship carriers in Henan. It has formed a set of scientific and comprehensive construction and operation experiences, and has played a significant demonstration role in the exploration and development of innovation and entrepreneurship carriers in the province. Official data show that by the end of 2022, Wisdom Island had attracted 2,000 scientific and technological businesses and 230 venture capital institutions and fund management institutions with a total management scale of 50 billion yuan ($6.91 billion).

Zhongyuan Longzi Lake Digital Economy Entrepreneurship and Innovation Cultivation Center, a joint venture of Microsoft China and the Zhengdong New District administrative committee, is a shining example of the island's position as a carrier of innovation and entrepreneurship.

At the center's exhibition hall, technicians wearing Microsoft MR, or mixed reality, glasses employ virtual scenes projected onto a large viewing screen to equip automotive software.

"With this technology, the traditional steps of product design, mold production, and assembly can be simulated digitally in advance, solving the problem of time and cost in the early stage," said Ji Xiaoyang, a manager at the center.

The center is the first innovation and entrepreneurship incubator in the Central Plains region supported by Microsoft to focus on the digital economy industry. It is aimed at discovering, cultivating and supporting outstanding innovation and entrepreneurship teams in the cutting-edge fields of the digital economy, such as digital transformation of traditional industries, overseas business, metaverse, and advanced manufacturing. Its main focus is on exploring innovative models of digital economy industries that are suitable for the actual needs of development in the Central Plains region.

"Most local businesses in Zhengzhou are experiencing industrial upgrading, especially for the digital transformation, which requires them to learn how to develop their own solutions as well as having more understanding of intelligent technology like the algorithm of artificial intelligence," Ji said.

The center offers visual AI algorithm services to support smart city transportation. Additionally, it provides training for micro startup businesses, offering them technological guidance and support. For instance, the Microsoft Cloud and Mobile Technology Incubation Program, a project operated by the center and launched in collaboration with Microsoft China and the local government, aims to provide tailor-made services for incubating businesses, with a focus on mobile and digital-related industries.

In this collaboration, the center can use Microsoft's advanced technology to help local businesses with industry-specific deep learning research and innovation. Additionally, due to the partnership with the Chinese government, data cannot be sent abroad to ensure its security, according to Ji.

"Zhengzhou is advancing the upgrading of its manufacturing, so there will be more needs from the intelligent industry. It is very promising, and we have already started guiding companies in this area," Ji said.

Henan Dayu Physical Agricultural Technology Research Institute Co, another business that settled in Wisdom Island in 2022, focuses on empowering the growth of modern agriculture development technology. The company has pioneered a machine that looks like a tree and is equipped with several monitoring devices for increasing production and environmental detection. It can remotely send information such as humidity, light, rainfall, wind speed, soil temperature and soil moisture to the user's WeChat mini program.

According to Gao Chunyang, a member of the institute's research department, from the first generation of wave energy yield enhancers in 2016 to the current fourth generation, after multiple iterations and upgrades, the coverage service range of each machine has been increased to around 6.7 hectares. The device uses electromagnetic, acoustic, optical, and other technologies to increase crop yield and quality, while effectively degrading pesticide residues, achieving the integration of physical technology, biological technology, agricultural production, AI and 5G technology.

"Based on experiments, this technology can increase the yield of various crops by about 5 percent to 50 percent. It fills the blank in the domestic market in the field of physical agriculture," Gao said.

The innovative machine has been promoted across China, including at the seawater rice base in Shandong, the China Rose Valley base in Sichuan and the wheat and cotton base in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Thanks to a favorable business environment and abundant university resources on the island located in the Zhengdong New District, the research institute has a good development trend and close ties with universities and research institutes such as Henan Agricultural University and Henan Academy of Sciences. As an innovation and entrepreneurship institution, it is actively applying for the status of a high-tech enterprise to strive for better development, Gao said.

In 2022, the Henan provincial government issued a guideline on accelerating the construction of Wisdom Island, calling for building a group of all-factor, low-cost, convenient and open innovation spaces, creating emerging industry clusters, future industry-leading areas and innovation and entrepreneurship-leading areas.

According to the government's guideline, by 2025, Wisdom Island is projected to construct more than 30 innovation and entrepreneurship carriers, cultivate 50 listed companies and introduce and develop 400 innovative enterprises with core competitiveness, creating an innovative ecological environment with active market dynamics and social creativity.

liangkaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn