Two cities on the verge of reaching the 2 – trillion – yuan GDP mark at the moment are shaking fingers and in search of cooperation.
On February 28, Wang Cheng, Secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, led a delegation from Ningbo to Nanjing, Jiangsu Province for a research and inspection. Zhou Hongbo, Secretary of the Nanjing Municipal Party Committee, and Li Zhongjun, Mayor of Nanjing, met with Wang Cheng and his entourage.
Exchanges and visits between cities should not unusual. However, after reviewing public info, it’s discovered that Nanjing and Ningbo, which have lengthy been “competitors” to one another, have not often had such excessive – stage interactions earlier than.
For a very long time, as a consequence of their comparable financial scales, the 2 cities have usually been in contrast by the surface world. Especially in recent times, the competitors between Nanjing and Ningbo for a spot within the high ten GDP – rating cities has change into more and more fierce.
However, a cautious evaluation reveals apparent variations within the improvement endowments of the 2 cities: one has wealthy scientific and academic sources and excels within the software program business; the opposite is understood for its vibrant non-public economic system and powerful manufacturing power. What form of sparks will fly when the “Software – famous City” meets the “Manufacturing – powerful City”?
Under the widespread alternative of constructing the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center, how will Nanjing and Ningbo obtain win – win outcomes by cooperation?
01
Consensus
In the race amongst China’s main financial cities, Nanjing and Ningbo are a pair of “twin stars” which might be often talked about.
In 2025, because the “gatekeeper” of the highest ten GDP – rating cities, Nanjing’s GDP reached 1942.878 billion yuan, a yr – on – yr enhance of 5.2%. During the identical interval, Ningbo’s GDP was 1871.6 billion yuan, a yr – on – yr enhance of 4.9%. Nanjing thus retained its place within the high ten, and the GDP hole between the 2 cities additional widened.
However, placing apart the rating competitors, the 2 cities are each at a important juncture of striving to achieve the 2 – trillion – yuan GDP mark and are dealing with comparable improvement conditions.
Zeng Gang, Dean of the Urban Development Research Institute of East China Normal University, analyzed to Urban Evolution Theory that within the two financial powerhouses of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Suzhou and Hangzhou are the unshakable “leaders” of their respective provinces, whereas Nanjing and Ningbo are barely inferior and have lengthy held the second – place place within the provincial economic system.
Specifically, in 2025, Nanjing’s financial primacy nonetheless ranked on the backside among the many 27 provincial capitals (autonomous area capitals) within the nation, and the event strain underneath the label of a “weak provincial capital” is larger.
The financial hole between Ningbo and Hangzhou has additionally widened from about 40 billion yuan in 2004 to about 430 billion yuan in 2025, making it nearly inconceivable to catch up within the quick time period.
The comparable improvement bottlenecks have led the 2 cities to achieve a consensus on the will for “new driving forces”.
Driven by the widespread want to interrupt by the bottleneck, the 2 cities have not often initiated excessive – stage exchanges and interactions, making an attempt to hunt extra potentialities and house for cooperation.
Wang Cheng mentioned bluntly that Nanjing and Ningbo are each within the Yangtze River Delta area, and their industries are extremely complementary. He hopes that the 2 sides will work collectively to discover key expertise analysis and improvement and the event of key industries.
Zhou Hongbo additionally mentioned that Ningbo is worthy of Nanjing’s studying by way of being a powerful manufacturing metropolis and an open hub. He hopes that the 2 cities will give full play to their respective comparative benefits and make new contributions to regional coordinated improvement and the general nationwide improvement scenario.
In Zeng Gang’s view, Ningbo and Nanjing have basis for cooperation.
As the “City of Single – champion Enterprises”, Ningbo has a powerful industrial manufacturing power, with the non-public economic system and export – oriented economic system at its core. Nanjing is the primary “China Software – famous City” within the nation, with software program enterprise income exceeding one trillion yuan and excellent R & D capabilities, and it has apparent traits of the state – owned economic system and home – oriented economic system.
The variations in industrial construction and possession construction between the 2 sides simply type a complementary relationship of “R & D + application” and “software + scenarios”. There is much less competitors and extra cooperation house, and it’s anticipated that by collaboration, new driving forces will be discovered for every metropolis to enter the “2 – trillion – yuan Club”.
02
Complementarity
During this analysis journey, the Ningbo delegation visited a number of locations, together with the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Nanjing Software Industry Expo Hall, and Yihui Information Technology Co., Ltd. The software program business was one of many essential focuses.
Image supply: Nanjing Software Valley, China
Wang Cheng emphasised that within the area of synthetic intelligence, Ningbo’s benefit lies in manufacturing and the {hardware} finish, which might present wealthy utility eventualities for the event of the software program business. He hopes that the 2 locations will actively promote exchanges and cooperation between platforms reminiscent of Nanjing Software Valley and Ningbo Software Park.
In Zeng Gang’s view, the underlying logic of the economic cooperation between Nanjing and Ningbo is that Ningbo has the market and Nanjing has the expertise.
During the “14th Five – Year Plan” interval, Ningbo’s industrial added worth rose from the ninth to the fifth within the nation, and the variety of nationwide – stage single – champion manufacturing enterprises has ranked first amongst Chinese cities for eight consecutive years, demonstrating Ningbo’s robust industrial power.
Currently, Ningbo, a significant manufacturing metropolis, is coming into a important interval of utilizing “artificial intelligence” to empower the upgrading of conventional advantageous industries.
According to the “Ningbo Action Plan for the Innovative Development of Artificial Intelligence (2025 – 2030)”, by 2027, the dimensions of town’s core synthetic intelligence business is predicted to achieve 120 billion yuan, and it goals to create a nationwide – stage synthetic intelligence innovation and utility pilot zone (base). It clearly mentions that it’s essential to deepen the combination of “artificial intelligence + manufacturing”, deal with industrial clusters reminiscent of inexperienced petrochemicals and new vitality automobiles, and speed up the applying of synthetic intelligence within the core hyperlinks of the manufacturing business.
And Nanjing can simply be the important thing “partner” for Ningbo’s clever manufacturing upgrading.
Nanjing is the primary “China Software – famous City” within the nation. In 2021, its software program and data service business was chosen as a nationwide – stage superior manufacturing cluster, and in 2025, the dimensions of software program enterprise income exceeded one trillion yuan.
Especially within the area of business software program, Yihui Information, the enterprise visited throughout this analysis journey, is a number one home enterprise in industrial working methods, and its efficiency and features in actual – time industrial working methods have reached the worldwide superior stage. Currently, Nanjing has cultivated greater than 160 key enterprises reminiscent of Yihui Information, Guorui Xinwei, and Jinheng Technology, and has set the aim of attaining an industrial software program income scale of over 50 billion yuan by 2028.
In truth, the economic cooperation between Nanjing and Ningbo doesn’t begin from scratch, and the foreshadowing for cooperation has been laid way back.
In 2023, Nanjing Software Valley specifically went to Ningbo for funding promotion and docking, visited key enterprises within the fields of business software program and digital – actual integration, laying a preliminary basis for the interconnection of business sources and enterprise linkage between the 2 locations.
Zeng Gang mentioned that on one hand, there are trillions of producing eventualities in want of clever upgrading, and alternatively, there’s an industrial software program business cluster with core applied sciences. Nanjing and Ningbo are an ideal match within the mixture of “industrial software + advanced manufacturing”. The two – manner pursuit of expertise implementation and situation empowerment constitutes a core strategy for the economic cooperation between the 2 locations.
Zeng Gang additional advised that sooner or later, the 2 sides may give full play to the versatile benefits of Ningbo’s non-public economic system and the useful resource benefits of Nanjing backed by Jiangsu Province to advertise the sensible implementation of business cooperation.
03
Innovation
The cooperation between Ningbo and Nanjing isn’t restricted to industrial complementarity. When the Ningbo delegation was on an inspection and research journey in Nanjing, the “Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center” was talked about once more.
The Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2025 proposed to “build international science and technology innovation centers in Beijing (Beijing – Tianjin – Hebei), Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta), and the Guangdong – Hong Kong – Macao Greater Bay Area”. Among them, the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center takes Shanghai because the chief, mobilizes the scientific and technological strategic forces of the Yangtze River Delta area on a bigger scale, adheres to innovation and entrance – line analysis, and explores future entrance – line scientific and technological instructions.
Both cities have made deployments in step with this nationwide technique.
Image supply: Photographic Network_501204922
According to the “Ningbo Daily”, throughout his go to to the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute, Wang Cheng emphasised: “Taking the construction of a key fulcrum of the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center as a starting point, further promote the open sharing of scientific research platforms and laboratories and the orderly flow of high – level talents.”
When assembly the Ningbo delegation, Zhou Hongbo additionally mentioned that he hopes that the 2 cities will give full play to their respective comparative benefits, strengthen the exact docking of improvement methods, collectively combine into and serve the built-in improvement of the Yangtze River Delta, and work collectively for the development of the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Community.
Under the strategic framework of the Yangtze River Delta integration, how can the 2 locations work collectively to combine into the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Community and change into two key fulcrums for selling the widespread prosperity of industries within the Yangtze River Delta?
(*2*) Zeng Gang mentioned that the development of the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center focuses on attaining extra unique breakthroughs from “0 to 1” and selling utilized analysis on the in – depth integration of the economic chain and the innovation chain.
In quick, it emphasizes “major breakthroughs in applied technology”. Nanjing and Ningbo can collectively attempt for main nationwide science and expertise initiatives or joint analysis initiatives within the Yangtze River Delta round this path.
In phrases of endowments, Ningbo’s financial basis is the non-public economic system. Enterprises in Ningbo have a powerful want for brand spanking new applied sciences and a eager sense of greedy industrial tendencies. Nanjing has excessive – stage R & D platforms such because the Purple Mountain Laboratory and the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute, with a focus of universities and analysis establishments and excellent R & D capabilities.
However, for Nanjing, though it has wealthy scientific analysis outcomes, it has lengthy confronted the bottleneck of low effectivity in outcome transformation.
According to Zeng Gang’s statement, taking the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute for instance, “professors and academicians play too dominant a role, and the role of entrepreneurs is not enough”, leading to a lot of scientific and technological achievements, however not many have been remodeled into income and industrial competitiveness.
In distinction, Ningbo is delicate to technological wants however lacks R & D sources.
Zeng Gang mentioned that the complementarity between the 2 locations has fashioned a basis for cooperation. Ningbo’s mature non-public financial setting offers an environment friendly transformation situation for Nanjing’s scientific analysis outcomes, accelerating the transformation of expertise into industrial competitiveness. Nanjing’s scientific analysis power and technological reserves present the “source of innovation” for Ningbo’s enterprises.
Zeng Gang advised that related analysis establishments within the two locations can strengthen cooperation and undertake a mannequin of “led by entrepreneurs and participated by scholars”, making the market the information for expertise transformation and collectively contributing to the scientific and technological cooperation between Nanjing and Ningbo and the development of the Shanghai (Yangtze River Delta) International Science and Technology Innovation Center.
This article is from the WeChat official account “Urban Evolution Theory”, writer: Liu Xuqiang, printed by 36Kr with authorization.