The World Design Cities Conference 2025, co-hosted by the Shanghai municipal government and UNESCO, was unveiled in Shanghai on Sept 25.

At the opening ceremony, the inaugural list of "U35 Plan" young creative design talent was announced, alongside the unveiling of four annual awards for the 2025 "Shanghai Design 100+" global competition.

The ceremony also showcased a series of creative design industry projects from leading institutions, including Pininfarina China and the Royal College of Art Shanghai Center, as well as a range of new fashion consumer products.

In addition, measures to further promote the high-quality development of the cosmetics industry were released, featuring 11 initiatives across four areas, including enterprise technological innovation, service system innovation, optimization of the development ecosystem and improvement of the industrial layout. The plan aims to establish Shanghai's cosmetics sector as distinctive, premium, and multi-functional, helping more "Made in Shanghai" products expand globally and gain wider recognition.

Launched earlier this year, the "U35 Plan" selects and cultivates creative design talent under 35 to support Shanghai's ambition of becoming a world-class design capital. It focuses on fields such as industrial design, architectural design, fashion design, digital design, service design, and creative management.

Thirty-five young design talents were selected, including Li Jingyao, vice-president of design at Volvo Asia-Pacific; Yi Gang, CEO of Ti5 Robot; Wang Fengchen, a pioneering Chinese fashion designer; and Xu Ye, deputy chief architect of Tongji Architectural Design.

The four annual awards of the 2025 "Shanghai Design 100+" global competition went to the following projects:

• The AI Innovation Design Award (Design Tools) was won by an AIGC creation platform from Alibaba Cloud and a video model from MiniMax.
• The AI Innovation Design Award (Industry Application) went to a humanoid robot of Unitree and an AI sports tactics analysis system jointly developed by China Media Group and Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
• The Group Cultural Creative Design Award was given to a Tang Dynasty (618-907) style jewelry series of the jewelry company Lao Feng Xiang.
• The Green Sustainable Design Award was presented to the Shanghai Greenhouse Garden.

Since its launch on March 15, the competition has attracted over 2,600 outstanding entries from 17 countries, including China, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, with the number of shortlisted projects reaching a record high.

Source: Shanghai Observer