As the end of December approaches, the 14th Five-Year Plan period enters its final countdown. Looking back over the past five years, Guangdong's journey has not been entirely smooth. As the province with the largest economic output for 36 consecutive years, Guangdong has seen its GDP growth rate fall below the national average for four consecutive years during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. With the provincial GDP surpassing the 14 trillion yuan mark for the first time in 2024, the old development model that had powered Guangdong's economy for over 40 years has also reached its "ceiling." This "giant ship," carrying over 127 million permanent residents and more than 20 million business entities, is now seeking a new path to break through. As the traditional growth engine pivoting on "real estate-finance-local government infrastructure" gradually loses steam, a new dynamic cycle is emerging in Guangdong: technology-industry-finance.
Recent sub-item data clearly shows Guangdong shifting its focus towards technology and the high-tech industries it drives, while leveraging financial innovation to further accelerate the efficiency of resource allocation across various sectors. From 2021 to 2024, Guangdong's R&D expenditure grew from 400.218 billion yuan per year to 509.961 billion yuan per year, with an average annual growth rate of nearly 10%. This drove a significant increase in the number of valid invention patents in the province, from 439,600 to 792,300, and the number of high-tech enterprises surged from 59,475 to over 77,000, ranking first nationally.
Meanwhile, the scale of new RMB loans in Guangdong returned to a positive growth trajectory in 2025. By the end of November 2025, RMB loans in Guangdong had increased by 1.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 191.1 billion yuan compared to the same period last year. By the end of August 2025, technology loans in Guangdong achieved a year-on-year growth of 9%, and loans to the digital economy industry grew by 6.5% year-on-year, indicating that financial resources are accelerating their flow into key sectors.
Entering the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Guangdong, as a frontrunner, is building momentum for a new round of power transformation. When will the "singularity" of qualitative economic change arrive? The answer might be "let the bullet fly a little longer."
In December, in Guangzhou, Professor Zhao Jincun's team at the State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases discovered GALNT2, the first interferon-stimulated gene that exerts broad-spectrum anti-respiratory viral infection effects through O-glycosylation modification, providing a new target for broad-spectrum antiviral therapy and related drug development. In November, China's first high-energy direct geometry inelastic neutron scattering spectrometer passed acceptance at the Spallation Neutron Source Science Center in Dongguan, which will provide key support for cutting-edge basic research in areas such as the physical mechanisms of high-temperature superconductivity, quantum magnetic interaction mechanisms, transport properties of thermoelectric materials, and the activity of biomaterials.
In October, the world's first "100-billion-neuron brain-inspired heterogeneous fusion supercomputer system," developed by the Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Science and Technology, passed the CCF scientific and technological achievement appraisal in Zhuhai, offering comprehensive solutions for ultra-large-scale brain simulation computing, high-dimensional complex graph network analysis computing, and general large model computing. Biomedicine, high-end equipment, intelligent technology... In the final three months of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, a batch of "first-of-their-kind" scientific research achievements emerged across Guangdong.
This trend was not confined to just these three months. Expanding the observation window to the past five years reveals that the number of valid invention patents in Guangdong has surged dramatically from 439,600 in 2021 to 792,300 in 2024. This represents a major gamble. Behind the emergence of numerous scientific research achievements, Guangdong's total R&D expenditure has grown from 400.218 billion yuan in 2021 to 509.961 billion yuan in 2024, with an average annual growth rate of nearly 10%. The proportion of R&D expenditure to the regional GDP also further increased to 3.60% in 2024.
"Investing money" was only the first step, accompanied by policy reforms in various regions to "loosen the bonds." "In terms of financial management, we have the autonomy to adjust fund usage according to research needs. We have also implemented a 'negative list' system, which has effectively accelerated the pace of research, enabling rapid responses in areas like talent recruitment, funding support, and laboratory platform construction," said Zhang Xu, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and President of the Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Science and Technology, at the institute's location in Hengqin, Zhuhai.
Four years ago, attracted by the development opportunities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the innovative atmosphere fostered by reforms in research management, Zhang Xu brought his research team from Shanghai to Guangdong to assume the role of President at the Guangdong Institute of Intelligent Science and Technology. Today, the institute has gathered over 410 research and management staff and has applied for 45 national invention patents cumulatively. "Progress in institutional mechanisms is crucial for unleashing the creativity of scientific and technological personnel," Zhang Xu frankly stated.
Overall, during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Guangdong took the lead nationally in launching and implementing the local "Zhuoyue" decade-long plan for basic research. It also pioneered the reform of empowering rights to job-related scientific and technological achievements across the province and comprehensively implemented pilot reforms for fund use based on a "negative list + lump-sum system" in provincial fund projects, maximizing the autonomy of scientific and technological personnel in using funds. Driven by capital, talent, and policy, Guangdong's innovation capability has steadily ascended.
In September 2025, the World Intellectual Property Organization released the "Global Innovation Index 2025," which showed that the "Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou" innovation cluster ranked first globally for the first time. "Guangdong's innovation is approaching the tipping point from quantitative change to qualitative change," said Wang Yunxing, Director of the Public Economics Research Office at the China (Shenzhen) Institute of Comprehensive Development. He noted that Guangdong's past development model, which relied heavily on external demand and large-scale land investment to support rapid economic growth, is now accelerating its shift towards a model driven by innovation.
As a number of major scientific and technological infrastructures are successively completed and the number of valid invention patents in the province approaches 800,000, new signals of industrial transformation are emerging in Guangdong amidst the intensifying technological revolution. In 2024, Guangdong was home to over 77,000 high-tech enterprises, accounting for 15.4% of the national total, with a total revenue exceeding 13 trillion yuan. In the same year, the export value of high-tech products in Guangdong reached 1,828.46 billion yuan, reversing a two-year declining trend and achieving a year-on-year growth of 10%.
These represent a batch of "seeds" waiting for the right conditions. UBTECH ROBOTICS is one of these 77,000. From obtaining high-tech enterprise certification in 2015 to its IPO at the end of ͏2023, becoming the "first stock of humanoid robots," UBTECH had already developed several humanoid robot products on the eve of the industry's takeoff. In 2024, the commercialization of the humanoid robot industry accelerated significantly, allowing UBTECH to achieve operating revenue of 1.305 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 23.7%.
In October of this year, a visit to UBTECH's exhibition hall revealed that its newly developed Walker S2 humanoid robot had achieved a breakthrough in autonomous battery swapping technology, capable of supporting 7x24 continuous operation, and has begun to enter diverse scenarios such as industrial production and logistics sorting. "UBTECH primarily focuses the application of humanoid robots on four commercial scenarios: smart education, smart logistics, smart wellness and elderly care, and commercial services. Among these, our market share in China's smart education sector has exceeded 23%, ranking first. This year, we will deliver 500 industrial humanoid robots and reach a production capacity of 1,000 units. We expect to launch the fourth-generation industrial humanoid robot product in the first half of next year," Tan Min, Chief Brand Officer of UBTECH, stated.
Yuejiang Technology, which was recognized as a national high-tech enterprise in 2017, also successfully listed in 2024. Liu Zhufu, Co-founder of Yuejiang Technology, stated that, as of now, the global deployment of Yuejiang robots has exceeded 100,000 units, ranking first in China and top two globally, serving over 80 Fortune Global 500 companies. Simultaneously, leveraging its localized layout in Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, Yuejiang has taken the lead in achieving full coverage of localized production and service networks for embodied intelligent humanoid robots.
In 2024, the operating revenue of Guangdong's intelligent robot industry reached 99.2 billion yuan. From January to May 2025, the output of industrial robots and service robots in Guangdong reached 124,700 units and 4.1698 million units respectively, representing year-on-year growth of 33% and 8.2%. The output of industrial robots accounted for over 40% of the national total. From ceramics to chips, from traditional fuel vehicles to new energy intelligent driving, from traditional assembly line production to the introduction of industrial robots and even humanoid robots... high-tech industries deeply embedded with technological genes are gradually occupying a larger share in Guangdong's industrial landscape.
In the first three quarters of 2025, the value-added of advanced manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing in Guangdong grew by 5.4% and 6.4% respectively, accounting for 55.5% and 33.8% of the total value-added of industrial enterprises above the designated size. During the same period, the output of high-tech products such as industrial robots, service robots, civilian drones, and 3D printing equipment in Guangdong grew by 33.7%, 15.2%, 44.8%, and 40.3% respectively. "Guangdong has built the 'Double Ten' strategic industrial clusters and five major future industries. The next core driver for industrial development is to further promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation, and jointly catalyze new quality productive forces through AI empowerment, reconstruction of dynamic mechanisms, and optimization of the ecosystem," said Zhang Zhengang, a second-level professor at the School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, and a member of the Expert Committee for the 15th Five-Year Plan of Guangdong Province.
From heavy investment in basic research and industrial innovation to the accelerated development of high-tech industries, a crucial link remains in the new power transformation envisioned by Guangdong: finance. From 2021 to 2024, the value-added of Guangdong's financial sector grew from 1,111.56 billion yuan to 1,239 billion yuan annually, and the number of domestically listed companies in the province increased from 762 to 875. Entering 2025, the scale of new RMB loans in Guangdong also returned to a positive growth trajectory. By the end of November 2025, RMB loans in Guangdong had increased by 1.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 191.1 billion yuan compared to the same period last year.
This is the key "catalyst" driving this new triangular dynamic cycle, subtly embedded within the development trajectory of the major economic province. On December 19, the IPO application of Yuexin Semiconductor was accepted by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, bringing this wafer manufacturing enterprise one step closer to listing. Tracing its development history, since its establishment in 2017, this future "first chip of Guangzhou" has been deeply intertwined with Guangdong's practice of sci-tech finance.
At its founding in 2017, Yuexin Semiconductor's founding shareholders included Guangzhou Yuxin Zhongcheng Equity Investment Partnership and Science City (Guangzhou) Investment Group Co., Ltd. As a local state-owned enterprise in Guangzhou, Science City Group contributed 200 million yuan in capital, firing the starting gun for Yuexin Semiconductor. Guangzhou Industrial Investment Group also added fuel to the rise of Yuexin Semiconductor. "In 2023, Guangzhou Industrial Investment took the lead in establishing two major mother funds. Without direct fiscal investment, these funds aggregated the entire industrial chain of strategic emerging industries and invested in a number of major projects with strong traction and long-term benefits. For instance, we, representing Guangzhou City, committed 8 billion yuan to participate in the national Phase III Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, led investments to support key private enterprises like Yuexin Semiconductor, Xinruiguang, and Xinyueneng, helping Guangdong build China's 'third pole' for integrated circuits," said Luo Junfu, Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of Guangzhou Industrial Investment Group.
Data released by the Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance shows that by the end of 2024, 155 government investment funds had been established in Guangdong, with a total subscribed capital of 1.77 trillion yuan and paid-in capital of 1.24 trillion yuan. After several rounds of financing, Yuexin Semiconductor has become Guangdong's first mass-producing 12-inch wafer manufacturer. According to its prospectus, Yuexin Semiconductor's operating revenues for 2022, 2023, 2024, and the first half of 2025 were 1.545 billion yuan, 1.044 billion yuan, 1.681 billion yuan, and 1.053 billion yuan, respectively.
Represented by Yuexin Semiconductor, Guangdong's integrated circuit output achieved a year-on-year growth of 21% in 2024, accounting for 18% of the national total. From January to July 2025, the industrial value-added of Guangzhou's integrated circuit manufacturing industry further reached 32.3%, with the output of integrated circuit wafers and analog chips growing by 53.9% and 18.9% respectively. In recent years, a series of financial innovation projects focusing on the technology sector have formed a "key narrative" in Guangdong's capital market. Recently, Guangdong's first provincial-level AIC equity fund with a scale of over 10 billion yuan—the Guangdong Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Industry Investment Fund—was officially established. AIC funds are characterized by large amounts, long cycles, and high risk tolerance, representing typical "patient capital" that invests early, small, and in hard technology.
Driving technology from "catching up" to "leading," accelerating the transformation of old and new industrial动能, and then speeding up resource allocation efficiency across all links through financial innovation... Guangdong's story is a microcosm of China's economic transformation and upgrading. As it strides into the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the lights on both sides of the Pearl River remain bright, with the "new troika" of technology, industry, and finance continuing to exert force, steering the economic powerhouse towards a new direction.
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