The number one city in Central China, striving for its first trillion-yuan industry

Ask AI · How can the AI wave assist Wuhan’s optoelectronic industry breakthrough?

Targeting the “3 trillion” goals

Momentum shifting is becoming the new mainline for the development of China’s “tallest” cities.

Recently, Wuhan officially announced the launch of the Advanced Manufacturing Industry Doubling Plan, aiming to surpass 3 trillion yuan in industrial total output value by 2030, with above-scale industrial added value reaching 800 billion yuan, accounting for about 27% of GDP, supporting the city’s GDP to reach 3 trillion yuan with industrial strength.

The level of industrial clusters is a hard measure of a city’s industrial strength and a ballast stone supporting economic development. “Trillion-level industrial clusters” are among the most “hardcore” labels.

Currently, cities like Suzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Nanjing already have trillion-level industries, but Wuhan has yet to cross this threshold.

The optoelectronic information industry is expected to achieve a “zero” breakthrough in Wuhan. Recently, key leaders of Hubei Province conducted research on the high-quality development of the optoelectronic information industry in Wuhan, proposing to strengthen basic research, enhance original innovation capabilities, and accelerate the creation of a world-class optoelectronic information industry cluster.

Amid the surging AI wave, Wuhan, the first city in central China, is accelerating its breakthrough.

01

The “Bright” Moment

In the past few years, Wuhan and Hangzhou have competed fiercely in economic rankings, alternating in leading positions. But by the end of 2025, Hangzhou’s lead has become quite evident.

The reason, according to Qin Zunwen, Vice President of the Chinese Urban Economics Society, lies in the game of industrial development. Industry is the main battlefield of GDP, supported by manufacturing. Recently, Hangzhou’s digital economy advantage has been fully demonstrated in the AI era, while Wuhan’s manufacturing strength, especially in automobile manufacturing, has been a step slower in transforming to new energy and intelligent connected vehicles.

Image source: Visual China_701120405

Losing the east, gaining the west. As the global AI wave arrives, demand for computing power explodes, with “hard currencies” like optical communication, optical modules, and storage chips performing remarkably, bringing a new wave of high “brightness” moments to Wuhan.

In the first quarter of this year, Wuhan’s GDP was 504.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%, outperforming the national and provincial averages by 0.7 and 0.3 percentage points respectively.

Industrial performance was even stronger — in the first quarter, the added value growth rate of Wuhan’s secondary industry and above-scale industrial added value reached 8.2% and 11.6%, leading among the top ten GDP cities, driving the proportion of secondary industry in GDP up to 35.3%, a significant increase of over 5 percentage points from the end of last year (29.8%).

The explosive momentum comes from high-tech industries. In the first quarter, the added value of Wuhan’s above-scale high-tech manufacturing increased sharply by 45.4%, with computer, communication, and other electronic equipment manufacturing increasing by 62.4%, becoming the main driver of industrial expansion and quality improvement.

In terms of products, civil drones production increased by 154.8%, integrated circuit wafers by 49.8%, and tablets by 48.3%. From January to February, the total profit of Wuhan’s above-scale industrial enterprises increased by 129.0% year-on-year.

Qin Zunwen believes that the significant growth in hard-tech products like optical communication, optical modules, and storage chips, with obvious profit margins, indicates that Wuhan’s earlier industrial investments are now paying off. Through these industries, Wuhan is expected to catch up with Hangzhou and Chengdu, narrowing the gap.

Wuhan also intends to leverage this momentum to strengthen its industrial capacity.

The recently announced Wuhan “14th Five-Year” Plan proposes to build a “965” modern industrial system, strengthen scale and capacity, and continuously improve industrial competitiveness and modernization. It mentions developing nine pillar industry clusters, including optoelectronic information and life health.

Recently, Wuhan officially launched the Advanced Manufacturing Industry Doubling Plan, further clarifying development goals: by 2030, to create 2 trillion-yuan-level industry clusters, 4 five-thousand-billion-yuan clusters, and 17 billion-yuan-level segmented industrial chains, with total industrial output value surpassing 3 trillion yuan, supporting the city’s GDP to reach 3 trillion yuan with industrial strength.

Qin Zunwen said that Wuhan, based on its strong technological strength, has cultivated and accumulated a batch of disruptive technologies and industries. In the current competition for new quality productivity, supported by several pillar industries, Wuhan has a good chance to achieve its industrial and GDP targets, or even better development results.

01

Trillion Industry

Looking at Wuhan’s industrial foundation, optoelectronic information and life health are two representative advantageous industries, both surpassing 500 billion yuan during the “14th Five-Year” period. Among them, optoelectronic information stands out even more.

A landmark platform is “Optics Valley.”

Image source: Visual China_501669278

In 1988, Wuhan East Lake High-tech Zone was established as the birthplace of China’s first quartz optical fiber, later approved as a national optoelectronic industry base, “Optics Valley.” Today, it has become the world’s largest fiber optic cable production base, nurturing a number of leading optical communication enterprises.

According to Hubei Daily, by 2025, the scale of Optics Valley’s optoelectronic information industry will exceed 650 billion yuan, with over 16k optoelectronic information companies gathering there. Meanwhile, Optics Valley’s economic capacity continues to rise, with its total economic volume accounting for over 15% of Wuhan’s GDP, up from 12.8% in 2020.

Entering the “14th Five-Year,” as AI drives explosive demand for computing power, Optics Valley continues to rise.

For example, Yangtze Optical Fiber and Cable, founded in the same year as Optics Valley, is the second company in Hubei with a market value exceeding 30k yuan after Huagong Tech. As of May 11, 2026, its market value has surpassed 300 billion yuan. Recently, the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Zone Management Committee disclosed that 72 listed companies in Optics Valley have a total market value exceeding 1 trillion yuan.

From the industry perspective, Wuhan’s optoelectronic information industry has now exceeded 850 billion yuan, just a step away from entering the trillion-yuan industry echelon, and is expected to become Wuhan’s first trillion-yuan pillar industry.

Looking nationwide, building trillion-yuan industry clusters is gradually becoming a standard for leading industry cities.

For example, Chengdu has formed two trillion-yuan industry clusters in electronic information and equipment manufacturing; Hangzhou boasts a trillion-yuan cluster in software and information services, with visual intelligence industry just a step away; Nanjing, slightly below Wuhan in GDP, proposed to build a trillion-yuan industry cluster as early as 2023, and officially announced the software industry surpassing 1 trillion in March this year.

When Wuhan launched the Advanced Manufacturing Industry Doubling Plan, it mentioned that in the next five years, it will develop two trillion-yuan clusters in optoelectronic information and life health. The “14th Five-Year” plan further specifies: by 2030, the scale of optoelectronic information and life health industries will reach 1.5 trillion and 1 trillion yuan respectively.

Qin Zunwen believes that, based on current development trends, Wuhan’s optoelectronic information industry is expected to meet its targets. However, while expanding industry scale, it is also necessary to address the shortcoming of cultivating leading enterprises. Compared to Hangzhou’s giants like Alibaba and NetEase, Wuhan still lacks “giant” leading companies; even core enterprises like Yangtze Memory still have room for growth. Filling this gap will further unleash Wuhan’s internal driving force for industrial development.

This is already reflected in Wuhan’s top-level strategic layout.

The “14th Five-Year” plan mentions that in consolidating pillar industries, Wuhan will cultivate a batch of industry-ecosystem leading enterprises and chain-leading companies, promoting the integration of innovation chains and industrial chains, continuously enhancing its position and competitiveness in global industrial division.

According to the plan, Wuhan will focus on doubling leading enterprises, aiming to cultivate 3 trillion-yuan, 10 five-hundred-billion-yuan, and 40 hundred-billion-yuan enterprises in the next five years.

03

Competing for 3 Trillion

As of now, five cities in China have a GDP exceeding 3 trillion yuan: Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chongqing, and Guangzhou. Following them, Suzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Wuhan, all with over 2 trillion yuan, have set “3 trillion” as the next stage GDP development goal.

Among them, as early as early 2024, Suzhou proposed to reach this goal in about three years, around 2026. Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Wuhan all set 2030 as their “breakthrough” year.

From the first quarter economic data, the competition among “2 trillion” cities is very tight: Suzhou leads with 5.8% growth, while Chengdu, Wuhan, and Hangzhou are all steady above 5.6%, with differences in growth rates within 0.2 percentage points.

Industries such as new energy vehicles, robotics, lithium batteries, and smart terminals are becoming key drivers of economic growth in these cities.

Image source: Visual China_701153458

Suzhou’s service robot and lithium-ion battery production increased 6.0 times and 2.2 times year-on-year, respectively; Chengdu’s lithium-ion batteries and smart TV production increased by 109.8% and 97.4%. Hangzhou, though not disclosing specific product data, saw an 11.7% increase in added value of core digital economy manufacturing industries, indicating higher quality in digital economy.

“This is a competition of core pillar industries,” Qin Zunwen analyzed. He believes that future city competition will increasingly focus on the level of pillar industries, and the upgrading and development directions of these industries will closely align with national strategic needs.

For example, the “14th Five-Year” plan added strategic emerging industries like intelligent connected vehicles and robotics, proposing to build characteristic, complementary strategic emerging industry clusters based on local conditions.

Qin Zunwen sees emerging industries as a key direction for “14th Five-Year” quality improvement, expansion, and upgrading. Cities with a GDP of 2 trillion yuan need to break into the “3 trillion club,” and the core of this breakthrough is technological innovation and hard power.

Whether a city can activate its local technological resources depends on the coordinated interaction of talent, technology, and education. Education is the foundation, technology is the core, but all innovation ultimately relies on talent landing and implementation.

Take Wuhan as an example. As a talent highland and major education hub, it once faced a shortcoming of insufficient conversion of scientific achievements. But since the implementation of the 2022 “Jian Dao” (尖刀) technological breakthrough project in Hubei, market-driven mechanisms have greatly mobilized researchers’ enthusiasm, further leveraging Wuhan’s scientific and educational talent advantages, leading to the current acceleration of industrial growth.

Qin Zunwen said that whether talent vitality can be fully unleashed will be a key factor in city competition for emerging industries.

Text | Liu Xuqiang

Cover image source: Visual China_701120404
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