The "Zhuque" series of rocket models on display [Photo by Wu Jiang]

China now has 409 unicorn companies, each of which is valued at over $1 billion, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the global unicorn companies, second only to the United States. Beijing, the "City of Unicorns," leads the country with 115 unicorn companies. As a pioneer in high-quality development in the capital, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (Beijing E-Town) is becoming the cradle for the growth of unicorn companies with its unique innovation ecosystem.

In recent years, Beijing E-Town has accelerated the construction of high-quality innovation incubation carriers, providing fertile ground for hard technology companies to grow. As of early March, the area had established 13 national-level technology business incubators, 15 municipal-level incubators, and nine district-level incubators, forming a complete incubation chain from co-working spaces to incubators and accelerators.

Meanwhile, Beijing E-Town has achieved positive results in cultivating innovative enterprises in a gradient manner. Since the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), Beijing E-Town has formed a development pattern of innovative echelons including "single champions - hidden champions - little giants - specialized and new, innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)", as well as unicorn enterprises, high-tech enterprises and technology-based SMEs.

Focusing on innovation support, platform construction, policy support, and financial services, Beijing E-Town has built a 'four-in-one' SMEs incubation model to promote their growth.

Beijing E-Town now has 1,084 specialized and new SMEs, including 155 national-level specialized and new "little giant" enterprises, ranking at the forefront among national economic and technological development areas. Additionally, the area has 2,376 national high-tech enterprises, 973 innovative SMEs, 19 unicorn enterprises, nine single champions and six hidden champions.

In order to promote independent innovation and industrial upgrading of enterprises, the area has introduced a series of policies covering the entire lifecycle of enterprises. In terms of strengthening common element policies, Beijing E-Town has focused on technological innovation and launched a package of "20 Policies for Science and Innovation," covering various aspects such as technology research and development, innovation platforms, enterprise incubation, R&D investment, digital transformation, industry-academia-research collaboration, among others. In 2024, 1.26 billion yuan ($171.43 million) was disbursed throughout the year, with the maximum support set at 100 million yuan for individual projects.

In the future, Beijing E-Town will further optimize its business environment, establish a sound policy system, and provide more practical measures and greater support to help enterprises strengthen themselves with new initiatives and collectively propel the industrial development of the area to new heights.