On April 22, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology held a press conference on the economic performance of the city's industrial and information software sectors in the first quarter of 2026. It was announced that the added value of Beijing's digital economy grew by 9.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, with the core digital economy industries seeing a growth rate of 12%. A total of 225 large AI models have completed the filing process with the Cyberspace Administration of China, accounting for approximately 30% of the national total and maintaining Beijing's leading position nationwide. The digital economy has become a significant driver of high-quality economic development in the city.
According to Zhang Jinrui, head of the Digital Industry Division of the Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, Beijing achieved three major milestones in the first quarter in building a globally leading digital economy city. Breakthroughs were made in the artificial intelligence industry, including the listing of Zhipu AI on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, making it the world's first listed company focused on core operations of a general artificial intelligence (AGI) foundation model. ByteDance released its new-generation video generation model, Seedance 2.0, which ranked first in several internationally authoritative multimodal video generation evaluations. To date, 225 large models developed in Beijing have passed the central cyberspace regulator's filing process, representing about 30% of the national total and securing the top spot in the country.
Simultaneously, high-quality computing power supply saw new progress. In the first quarter, Beijing added 10,000 petaflops of computing capacity, bringing the city's total computing scale to 70,000 petaflops. The implementation of the "Galaxy Computing Corridor" project in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region accelerated, utilizing over 900,000 petaflops of high-quality computing resources from the region and western China during the quarter. Additionally, 40 existing data centers in the city have begun green and low-carbon upgrades.
Furthermore, digital empowerment for enterprise development and social governance reached new heights. In the first quarter, Beijing released the 3.0 version of its comprehensive supporting reform plan for facilitating cross-border data flow, shifting the focus from compliance-driven to value-driven data utilization. The city also issued the "Beijing Action Plan for Comprehensively Deepening 'One-Stop Online Services' and Promoting the Intelligent Development of Government Services (2026–2027)" to continuously optimize smart government service scenarios and enhance digital governance and public service efficiency.
Zhang Jinrui stated that the next steps will involve fully implementing the "2026 Key Tasks for Building Beijing into a Global Digital Economy Benchmark City" to achieve new progress across various fronts. In digital technology research, efforts will focus on key areas such as large AI models, 6G, quantum information, and embodied intelligence to drive technological breakthroughs and yield more innovative outcomes. In digital industry development, the scale of the AI industry will continue to expand, with benchmark projects including the development of a common underlying framework for intelligent agents and widespread application of industry-specific intelligent solutions. In digital application innovation, the city will accelerate the construction of several national AI application pilot bases, introduce specialized policies for AI empowerment in vertical industries, and create a number of benchmark application scenarios. In digital infrastructure, Beijing will continue to promote the construction of an intelligent computing support belt featuring "super nodes + industry nodes," with plans to add over 70,000 petaflops of intelligent computing capacity throughout the year.
Additionally, the city will strengthen digital service support, accelerate the development of large-model application scenarios in government affairs, and create a series of standardized, replicable smart government benchmark applications.
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