Waigaoqiao, a free trade zone area in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, has attracted a cluster of AI-empowered enterprises spanning healthcare, industry, high-end manufacturing and logistics, supported by its bonded supply chain system, institutional innovation and cross-border capital services.

Danish transport and logistics group DSV recently launched a new project through its global logistics subsidiary in Waigaoqiao, positioning the warehouse as a core hub for its Greater China and Philippines clusters. The facility provides bonded storage of high-end AI goods, cross-border distribution, resource allocation and integrated supply chain services.

Shanghai Yaotong Technology Co Ltd, a company that is focused on AI plus healthcare, has also set up operations in Waigaoqiao. A company representative said the zone's bonded research and development and cross-border customs arrangements are well suited to its AI-driven medical business.

Another company that has settled in Waigaoqiao is StairMed, which specializes in minimally invasive implantable brain-machine interfaces, has built a complete technology system covering core components, system integration, encoding and decoding algorithms, peripheral interaction and data accumulation, producing multiple invasive brain-computer interface devices.

Wiraxon, which is focused on brain-spine interface technology, began construction of a 7,100-square-meter headquarters in the zone for research, production and clinical demonstration.

The company's three-in-one implantable brain-spine interface system became the first brain-computer interface product in China to receive breakthrough device designation from the US Food and Drug Administration, with its products having completed type testing and clinical ethics review.

Waigaoqiao released a full-process service package for BCI products, covering project identification, project implementation and matchmaking, clinical research, registration, pricing and payment, application scenarios and capital coordination.

In March, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Free Trade Zone Group and Shanghai Seventh People's Hospital established a brain-computer interface application research base and launched an overseas clinical research project.

Agilent Technologies, a US-based life sciences and diagnostics company, has set up its China Innovation Center in Waigaoqiao, and it is exploring integrating AI into products and solutions to make laboratory instruments and workflows more efficient and autonomous, helping biopharmaceutical companies accelerate research and development.

Waigaoqiao's financial consulting team has helped technology firms such as Insilico Medicine and Innoscience list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, advising them on overseas investment compliance and cross-border corporate structuring.

In the first quarter, an "AI plus" entrepreneurship practice base opened in the Pudong Airport Comprehensive Bonded Zone, connecting intellectual resources from Nanyang Technological University and other global universities with regional industrial platforms.

Source: Shanghai Observer