SHANGHAI, July 20 (Xinhua Silk Road) -- Shanghai's economy maintained a robust growth trajectory in the first half of 2026, fueled by stellar performance in its three leading industries, namely integrated circuits, biomedicine and artificial intelligence (AI), official data showed on Monday.
Shanghai's gross domestic product (GDP) reached 2.79 trillion yuan in the first six months of the year, representing a 5.6 percent year-on-year expansion, according to the municipal bureau of statistics.
Industries and the service sector are the main driving forces of the economic development in the financial hub in east China, as the added value of Shanghai's secondary and tertiary industries grew by 4.7 percent and 5.9 percent year on year respectively. Key industries, including manufacturing, finance, and information technology services, collectively contributed over 70 percent of the city's overall economic expansion.
The city's shift toward innovation-driven growth was highlighted by its three leading industries, whose combined manufacturing output value surged 14.5 percent year on year. Among them, the AI sector registered the fastest growth at 21.8 percent, followed by integrated circuits at 19.5 percent and biomedicine at 7.2 percent.
On the trade front, Shanghai's total foreign trade volume reached 2.55 trillion yuan in the first half, driven by a 20.1 percent surge in exports and a 17.4 percent rise in imports. High-tech products trade climbed 21.6 percent to 662.14 billion yuan, with electronic information and high-end equipment trade rising 20.7 percent and 26.5 percent respectively.
Despite the high-quality progress and the strengthening of new growth drivers, the foundation for a sustained economic recovery still needs to be solidified given ongoing global uncertainties, according to the municipal bureau of statistics.
Looking forward, Shanghai will continue to focus on implementing major national strategic initiatives, unleashing consumer demand, expanding effective investment, and nurturing high-value industrial clusters.
The data release came as the 2026 World AI Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance was scheduled to wrap up in Shanghai on Monday.
China has hosted WAIC for nine consecutive years, with the conference serving as a platform to forge global AI partnerships to unlock AI's benefits for all.
As one of China's leading AI innovation hubs, Shanghai has positioned the sector as a key engine of economic growth. Chen Jie, deputy mayor of Shanghai, said recently that the city has built a full-fledged development ecosystem integrating independent innovation, application-driven growth, opening-up and cooperation, coordinated industrial ecosystem development, and security governance.
Shanghai was home to 394 major AI enterprises in 2025, with their end-2025 total industrial scale exceeding 637 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 39.5 percent. (Contributed by Gao Pan & Guo Jingdan)
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