Chongqing — Chongqing is accelerating efforts to become a national hub for software and information services, with officials saying the sector has expanded to rank among China’s top performers, according to a press conference on December 30.

Chongqing has made a series of gains over the past three years. The city added 263,000 workers in software and information services, doubling the workforce compared with 2021.

The city also reported rapid growth in the number of companies. Chongqing said 17,200 new software and information services firms have been registered, including an expanding group of larger players. 

Officials cited three companies with annual revenue topping 10 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars), 20 companies with annual revenue above 1 billion yuan, and 91 locally developed software products and applications selected for national pilot and demonstration programs.

Chongqing expects the sector's main business revenue in 2025 to exceed 500 billion yuan, up 77% from 282.4 billion yuan in 2021. Officials said software and information services are on track to become the first pillar industry in Chongqing's "33618" modern manufacturing cluster system, meeting its stated targets.

A picture of Liangjiang New Area Digital Economy Industrial Park. (Chongqing Daily)

Officials also highlighted application scenarios — project opportunities published by government and industry to help tech firms test and scale products — as a key policy tool. Chongqing has released 4,117 scenarios in 184 batches over the past three years, with related construction investment exceeding 34.2 billion yuan.

Computing power is one area where the city is trying to turn those scenarios into growth. Chongqing is coordinating resources both within the municipality and beyond its borders, accelerating the development of computing-related industries and building specialized parks such as Mingyue Lake and Jinfeng Software Park.

Outside the city, Chongqing is moving ahead with a plan to draw on computing resources in Xinjiang and has begun building a China Mobile–Alibaba Cloud intelligent computing center. The projects are intended to provide major local companies with computing capacity that is lower-carbon, more secure, and more cost-competitive.

Chongqing is also building infrastructure to move data more securely, with several trusted data space projects selected for pilots across the city, the auto sector, medical insurance, and other sectors. The aim is to refine data-sharing mechanisms, expand real-world applications, and develop a pipeline of high-quality datasets to support the city's digital transformation.