Li Zheng, Partner und Vizepräsident von 36Kr: Wo liegt die Zukunft der chinesischen Industrie? | 36Kr Konferenz zur Zukunft der Industrie 2025

On September 10th, the 2025 36Kr Industry Future Conference, hosted by 36Kr, grandly kicked off in Xiamen, China. This conference joined hands with the "China International Fair for Investment and Trade" hosted by the Ministry of Commerce. With the core theme of "In the Era of Intensive Cultivation, the Tides Surge in the Land of Plenty", it strived to create a high - standard, high - value, and high - impact industry event that combines national height, industrial depth, and market popularity.

The conference closely aligns with national strategic directions and the forefront of industrial development, focusing on five core sectors: artificial intelligence, low - altitude economy, advanced manufacturing, new energy, and large - scale consumption. It brings together top industry forces to discuss development paths and outline the future of the industry. During the two - day agenda, with the "industrial cooperation chain" as the logical main line, the conference focuses on the collaborative mechanism among the government, capital, and industry, and deeply explores how to break barriers, integrate resources, and precisely solve the pain points, bottlenecks, and constraints in industrial development.

On that day, Li Zheng, a partner and vice - president of 36Kr, gave a keynote speech titled "Where is the Future of China's Industry?"

The following is the content of the speech, edited by 36Kr:

Dear Director Chen, distinguished leaders and experts:

Good morning, everyone!

The 36Kr Industry Future Conference comes to Xiamen for the first time, coinciding with the period of the China International Fair for Investment and Trade, and the venue is filled with guests. Considering the very tight schedule today and tomorrow, I'll quickly summarize the industry trends observed in the past year for you.

First, I'd like to share several trends from an investment perspective:

1. The overall investment market shows a positive trend. According to the data, the signal of the recovery of the investment market is quite obvious. On the fundraising side, both the number and scale of fundraising have achieved double - digit growth. On the investment side, from January to August, the number of investment projects increased by 20% year - on - year, and the number of fundraising increased by 1.6% year - on - year. From 36Kr's perspective, the number of reports on financing news and the number of first - released new project financings on the platform have both increased by 10%, and the overall activity of fundraising and investment has significantly improved.

2. The capital contribution structure tilts towards state - owned capital, and the role of industrial capital is prominent. Although it is an industry consensus that "state - owned capital is accelerating its entry and RMB funds are becoming more active", the data more intuitively reflects this trend: Among the more than 800 billion yuan of fundraising scale disclosed this year, the proportion of state - owned capital contribution exceeds 68%, approaching 70%, and the proportion of non - state - owned capital contribution is less than one - third. At the same time, industrial capital is playing an increasingly important role in the investment field, including industrial capital with state - owned backgrounds and industrial capital of large enterprises such as A - share listed companies.

3. The investment direction focuses on "self - controllability" and "scientific and technological breakthroughs". The orientation of "investing in early - stage, small - scale, and hard - tech projects" has been put forward for many years. In the first half of this year, the investment direction was further clarified as "self - controllability" and "scientific and technological breakthroughs". In the past, in venture capital matchmaking, people paid more attention to indicators such as business models, closed - loop capabilities, user scale, and GMV. Now, hardcore indicators such as patent situations, team backgrounds (whether there are professors or academicians involved), technical parameters, and yield rates have become the core topics of discussion.

After these three trends, I'd like to share five popular sectors worthy of attention:

1. AI: From "conceptual hype" to "realization of practical value". The AI sector remains hot. Last year, the industry was still discussing AGI (General Artificial Intelligence). This year, it has truly entered the first year of AI application implementation and actual value creation. Although the competition in the large - model field continues, capital has begun to tilt towards AI enterprises with implementation capabilities. From 2023 to 2024, 36Kr reported on several large - model enterprises such as DeepSeek, witnessing the process of the industry's transformation from technological exploration to value conversion.

2. Embodied intelligence: The core carrier for AI to connect with the physical world. Since last year, 36Kr has held a special conference on embodied intelligence every year and defined it as "the window for AI to access the physical world". Currently, the field of embodied intelligence represented by robots is extremely popular, driving the upstream and downstream industrial chains to heat up simultaneously: Core component enterprises such as joints and power motors upstream have attracted much attention and received a large amount of industrial capital support; Robot R & D enterprises in the middle stream and the full - platform, full - ecosystem model of "brain + robot" have also become the focus of the industry.

3. Low - altitude economy: Accelerated layout and emerging explosive potential. Although the low - altitude economy has not yet formed a complete business model, many places have started industrial - level layout and attempts. As more and more enterprises obtain airworthiness certificates, the explosive period of the low - altitude economy is approaching. In addition, related fields such as low - orbit satellites that support the low - altitude economy are also worthy of attention.

4. New energy and new materials: The "cornerstone of technological innovation" with long - term prospects. Although from the perspective of media reporting heat, the new energy and new materials sectors are not as popular as in the previous two years, we still have long - term confidence in their development potential - they are the core cornerstones for many subsequent technological innovations. Taking new energy as an example, the fact that armored vehicles and tanks used new - energy power in the military parade in September this year indicates that the application scenarios of new energy will continue to expand. In the field of new materials, 36Kr has reported on enterprises in niche sectors such as controllable degradable plastics. Their development is not only related to the economy but also involves global ecological issues, and they have broad application prospects in the future.

5. Biopharmaceuticals: A revolution in R & D efficiency empowered by AI. The core change in the biopharmaceutical field lies in its in - depth integration with AI. Last year, the achievement of the Nobel laureate in using AI to solve the protein folding problem reignited the industry's attention on "AI + biopharmaceuticals". In China, more and more enterprises are using AI for target discovery and targeted drug R & D. In the past, new drug R & D was often "topic - oriented with an indefinite cycle", which might take 1 - 10 years. Now, AI platforms can achieve "demand - oriented and rapid response", and target discovery can be completed in 1 - 3 months, greatly improving R & D efficiency.

The changes in the industry and the market are essentially a reshaping of the "value orientation", which can be observed from three dimensions:

1. Narrative logic: From "business models" to "technological granularity". In the past, the industry focused more on telling business - model stories. Now, it focuses on technology itself - details such as technical parameters, patent levels, and team professional backgrounds, known as "technological granularity", have become the core narrative points. From an investment perspective, the market's attention to "short - term market performance" has decreased, and it values the long - term value of technology more.

2. Industrial ecosystem: From the "jungle law" to "ecological collaboration". In the past, industrial competition followed the "jungle law": competing in capital strength, relying on scale barriers to rapidly expand and annex opponents. Now, it emphasizes "ecological collaboration". Enterprises need to learn to cooperate with "national teams" and communicate with upstream and downstream industries in the industrial chain, and find their own positions in the ecological system. Even if they only focus on niche sectors like "screws", they can achieve high - quality development through ecological collaboration.

3. The mindset of practitioners: From "valuation frenzy" to "rational pragmatism". In the past, the industry was path - dependent on "high - frequency financing and high - valuation growth". It was normal to raise funds once a year, twice a year was considered "excellent", and doubling the valuation annually was the "standard". Now, the mindsets of entrepreneurs and investors have become more rational, and they recognize the steady development model of "20% - 30% annual growth, with 50% being excellent". 36Kr is also adjusting its communication orientation: reducing the hype of "high valuations" and focusing more on real business data such as enterprise revenues and gross profits to help investors discover "quality - type" rather than "crazy - type" enterprises.

That's a brief summary of the industry trends from January to August this year. Thank you all.