"Invest in one project every two days on average." Suzhou is going all out!
In the second year of the Jingyou era in the Northern Song Dynasty, Fan Zhongyan, the prefect of Suzhou, donated a piece of land intended for his private residence to establish the Suzhou Prefectural School, leaving a profound mark in the history of Chinese education. It is regarded as the pioneer of school - building across the country. Since then, for nearly a thousand years, the scholarly atmosphere in the Jiangnan region has thrived.
Since then, Suzhou has become a city that "spends money on people."
Over the more than 1,300 years since the imperial examination system was established in the Sui and Tang dynasties, more than 50 top scholars have emerged from Suzhou, accounting for one - seventh of the national total. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a total of 114 top scholars were produced, and Suzhou alone had 26, nearly a quarter. In modern and contemporary times, there are more than 100 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering from Suzhou, ranking first among prefecture - level cities in the country.
Xu Youzhen sighed in "Record of the Renovation of Suzhou Confucian School": "Our Suzhou is the best prefecture in the country, its school is the best in the country, and its talents are the best in the country. How magnificent!"
Nearly a thousand years later, this "hometown of top scholars" has once again placed a heavy bet on "people."
In July 2025, the Suzhou Talent No. 1 Fund was officially launched. With a total scale of 10 billion yuan, the first - phase fund is 2.5 billion yuan, and the duration is as long as 15 years. It was initiated by the Suzhou Venture Capital Group, and the Suzhou Angel Mother Fund serves as the manager. A person in charge of a venture capital institution frankly said: "The scale of a talent fund like Suzhou's is quite prominent in the country."
Now, this talent fund has presented its latest report card. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the fund has cumulatively approved 13 sub - funds and invested in 81 projects, with the proposed total investment exceeding 800 million yuan, achieving the remarkable speed of "approving, establishing, and investing in the same year."
A scale of 10 billion yuan shows courage, and a 15 - year duration shows patience. The land that Fan Zhongyan donated back then brought back a millennium - long cultural heritage. What can the 10 - billion - yuan fund that Suzhou invests today bring back?
A Capital Experiment on "People"
The talent fund is not an original idea of Suzhou. In the past two years, many cities have successively followed this model, but most are still in the "tentative" stage.
Different from traditional industrial funds, the starting point of a talent fund's investment is not the track or the project, but "people."
It focuses on talent teams with core intellectual property rights and technological innovation capabilities, providing capital support when they take the first step from the laboratory to entrepreneurship. Its goal is to stimulate the potential of talent teams to transform scientific and technological achievements, create competitive products, and build leading enterprises in the industrial chain.
In this sense, the talent fund is not only a venture capital tool but also a pre - emptive "talent discovery mechanism." It invests not in established enterprises today but in potential industries that may emerge tomorrow.
The Suzhou Talent No. 1 Fund adopts a three - tier operation model of "mother fund + secondary sub - funds + direct investment." The mother fund is responsible for top - level strategies and fund allocation; the secondary sub - funds are set up according to different tracks, covering eight major directions such as biomedicine, artificial intelligence, low - altitude economy, intelligent robots, high - end equipment, integrated circuits, cultural and creative industries, and youth entrepreneurship, which are highly consistent with Suzhou's industrial system construction and talent introduction priorities; direct investment is used to quickly capture high - quality talent projects that are not suitable for the sub - fund process.
The three - tier structure has clear division of labor, ensuring the systematic investment of funds and retaining the ability to respond quickly to good projects.
In terms of regional layout, the fund also shows the intention of "full - scale coverage." Currently, the cooperative sub - funds have been successfully established in key areas such as Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou High - tech Zone, Kunshan, Wuzhong, Changshu, and Taicang. Secondary talent sub - funds for different tracks such as artificial intelligence, low - altitude economy, intelligent robots, high - end equipment, and integrated circuits have been set up. In addition, achievement transformation sub - funds have been established relying on scientific research platforms such as the Gusu Laboratory of Materials Science and the Suzhou Biomedical Sub - center, directly reaching into the laboratories.
Looking at the achievements of this fund, it invested in 48 projects with an investment amount of over 400 million yuan in the year of its establishment, and achieved a "good start" in the first quarter of this year.
As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, 9 projects were approved at the mother - fund level with an investment amount of 102 million yuan; a total of 72 projects were approved at the sub - fund level with an investment amount of 702 million yuan, mainly covering strategic emerging industries such as integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine.
A very convincing statistic is that among the 6 representative enterprises selected in the "2025 Suzhou Young Scientists" evaluation, 4 are enterprises invested by the talent fund.
According to relevant reports in Suzhou Daily, Moguang New Energy was founded by Zhu Bin, a post - 90s doctor. Its zero - energy - consumption radiative cooling technology has been recognized by industry leaders such as Apple and BYD. Institutions such as Tencent and Zhongke Chuangxing have made early - stage investments. The talent fund will help the enterprise overcome application bottlenecks in scenarios such as photovoltaic energy storage and new - energy vehicle cooling. Shian Bio is a "unicorn" cultivation enterprise in Suzhou. Its dual - target siRNA pipeline for hepatitis B treatment has entered the IND stage, and the founder team members are all leading talents in Suzhou's innovation and entrepreneurship. The "two - way pursuit" between young talents and cutting - edge technologies is truly happening in this fund.
It is reported that this fund is managed by the Suzhou Angel Mother Fund under the Suzhou Venture Capital Group. As a first - level state - owned capital operation platform in Suzhou, the Suzhou Venture Capital Group was established by the Suzhou Finance Bureau by integrating multiple municipal investment entities. It manages a total fund scale of over 320 billion yuan and is one of the most important venture capital infrastructures in Suzhou and even the Yangtze River Delta region.
An industry insider once evaluated the Suzhou Venture Capital Group like this: "In the state - owned capital system, it is the investment company that understands innovation best; in the venture capital circle, it is the institutional investor that understands policies best."
However, managing a talent fund is different from managing an industrial fund. A talent fund invests in the earliest, most cutting - edge, and most uncertain "people," requiring the manager to have the insight to "find gold in the sand." The confidence of the Suzhou Venture Capital Group comes precisely from its years of accumulated "early - stage investment" gene.
It has verified the six words "invest in the early stage, invest in small enterprises, and invest in hard technology" with real money for many years. Among the 139 direct - investment projects completed by the Suzhou Venture Capital Group in 2025, about 60% are start - up enterprises; the team has accumulated data on more than 25,000 early - stage enterprises.
Companies such as Borui Biotech, Saiwu Technology, Jinhong Gas, Ailong Technology, and Haochen Technology, which are now listed on the capital market, were all seeds sown by it in the early stage many years ago.
The addition of the Talent No. 1 Fund has further advanced the early - stage investment network of the Suzhou Venture Capital Group. The talent fund focuses on seed - stage talent projects, the angel mother fund covers start - up stages, and the future industry angel fund invests in the early stage. A capital chain from "discovering talents" to "cultivating enterprises" and then to "growing industries" is taking shape within the system.
In a sense, this gradient - style accompanying is a modern interpretation of Suzhou's traditional craftsmanship of "taking time to do things well" in the financial field.
From "Talent Grabbing" to "Talent Retention": Suzhou's Long - termism
According to the current investment pace, the 2.5 - billion - yuan first - phase fund is expected to be fully invested by the end of this year. The establishment of the second - phase fund is imminent.
However, the second - phase fund will not be a simple replication of the first - phase one. From the public information, the talent fund in the next stage will be upgraded in at least three dimensions.
The first is the upgrade in industrial depth. The first - phase fund has basically achieved full coverage of Suzhou's ten key emerging industries, while the second - phase and subsequent funds will further focus on ten key future industries, including quantum technology, biological manufacturing, hydrogen and nuclear fusion energy, brain - computer interface, embodied intelligence, and sixth - generation mobile communication.
The national "15th Five - Year Plan" clearly proposes to make forward - looking arrangements for future industries. Suzhou closely follows this deployment and targets new tracks. These fields have higher technical thresholds, longer maturity cycles, and greater uncertainties, but they are also the main battlefields of global industrial competition in the next ten to twenty years. Placing bets in these fields tests not only vision but also perseverance.
The second is the upgrade of the cooperation ecosystem. Currently, the National Social Security Fund, the National Venture Capital Fund, etc. have fully launched investment operations, and many state - owned financial asset investment company funds are accelerating their layout. All parts of the country are highly focused on the innovation - driven development strategy.
In this general trend, the second - phase fund plans to deepen cooperation with the country's leading market - oriented institutions and introduce external resources to empower Suzhou's talent projects. This means that the talent fund will no longer be just an "internal cycle" within Suzhou's local state - owned capital system but will open its arms to a wider range of market - oriented capital, forming a dual - wheel - drive pattern of "state - owned capital guidance + market - oriented operation."
The third is the upgrade of the mechanism. The fund will closely follow Suzhou's strategic deployment to build itself into the "Preferred City for OPC Entrepreneurship" and give priority support to talent projects that perform excellently in events such as the Suzhou Global Entrepreneurship Competition, improving the working mechanism of "using competitions instead of evaluations and using investments to promote innovation." The core idea of this mechanism is to use market - based competition screening to replace administrative talent evaluations, allowing projects with real technological content and industrial prospects to "stand out" on their own.
The goal for 2026 is clear: the total scale of secondary talent sub - funds will exceed 5.5 billion yuan, and more than 200 new talent - related enterprise investment projects will be added. For a fund that has been established for less than a year, the ambition of this target list once again confirms Suzhou's determination in the talent competition.
The "Talent Report" of Suzhou released at the beginning of this year shows that the total amount of talent resources in the city reached 4.25 million in 2025. Suzhou offers more than 300,000 high - quality employment positions and more than 30,000 high - quality internship positions to young talents every year. Fresh graduates with a bachelor's degree or above coming to Suzhou for job interviews can receive a transportation subsidy of up to 2,000 yuan and free accommodation for up to 14 days. Fresh doctoral, master's, and bachelor's graduates are given monthly rental subsidies of no less than 1,500 yuan, 1,000 yuan, and 800 yuan respectively. Within three years, 30 top - level talent (teams) with global influence will be newly introduced, and they will be given project subsidies of 30 million to 100 million yuan and housing subsidies of 3 million to 10 million yuan. For urgently needed and scarce talents in fields such as artificial intelligence, a one - time living subsidy of up to 100,000 yuan can be obtained. The city's eagerness for talents is solidly reflected in real money and institutional design.
However, in the current situation where all cities are competing in terms of funds, subsidies, and policies, Suzhou's real differential competitiveness may not lie in the intensity of a single policy but in the way it views the talent issue.
The talent strategies of most cities still focus on the "introduction" stage, that is, using subsidies to attract people and using household - registration policies to retain them. This is of course important, but "bringing in" is only the first step. The more crucial thing is to enable talents to "grow." Turning their technologies into products, their teams into enterprises, and their innovations into industries. This transformation chain from "people" to "industry" is precisely the core link that the talent fund tries to break through.
Suzhou has the largest number of national - level science and technology business incubators in the country, more than 18,000 high - tech enterprises, nearly a thousand venture capital institutions, and a managed fund scale of more than 1.1 trillion yuan. More importantly, Suzhou has a complete industrial service ecosystem from incubation, investment, acceleration to listing.
After talents come to Suzhou, they are not left to fend for themselves in a desolate place but are integrated into a system, receiving all - round support in terms of capital, industrial chain, and market connection. Ultimately, only when talents are willing to stay can they be transformed into real industrial strength.
After all, the attractiveness of a city to talents never depends only on how much money is given but on the growth environment it can provide for talents.
Suzhou's choice to answer this question with a 10 - billion - yuan fund with a 15 - year duration is in itself an attitude: compared with the short - term "talent - grabbing war," it cares more about building a long - term ecosystem where talents are willing to take root and grow.
A new round of urban reshuffle may be starting right here.
From "Hometown of Top Scholars" to "Innovative City": What Makes Suzhou?
Suzhou has always been a city that understands the art of "slowness." Its 2,500 - year history of city - building has left it gardens, Suzhou embroidery, kesi silk tapestry, and jade carving, as well as the aesthetic and craftsmanship spirit of "taking time to do things well."
However, the people of Suzhou are never conservative. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Suzhou was the national center of handicrafts and a major commercial town. "Suzhou style" and "Suzhou craftsmanship" were once synonymous with quality and fashion.
Since modern times, this city has successively nurtured a group of Suzhou merchants. Well - known names such as Hengtong, Hengli, and Shagang have all grown from the soil of Suzhou. Thousands of years of experience have given Suzhou a unique temperament: delicate yet practical, patient yet daring.
However, what really enabled this ancient city to achieve a modern transformation was an industrial reconstruction in the past thirty years.
In 1994, the China - Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park broke ground. What was initially just a rural area of water towns and farmlands has now gathered 72 listed companies, nearly 2,000 high - tech enterprises, and hundreds of venture capital institutions. The proportion of R & D investment in GDP in the whole society has reached 5.2%, the coverage rate of R & D institutions in industrial enterprises above the designated size has exceeded 85%, and the comprehensive competitiveness of the biomedicine industry ranks among the top in the country.
From "garden" to "industrial park," a one - character difference represents a profound evolution that a city has achieved in thirty years.
Looking across the country, Suzhou has an extremely solid innovation foundation. The "Report on the Scientific and Technological Innovation and Development of Chinese Cities" shows that Suzhou's scientific and technological innovation development index has continuously ranked fourth in the country, only after Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai, and first among all prefecture - level cities.
In the first ten months of 2025, the output value of high - tech industries above the designated size in the city reached 2.24 trillion yuan, accounting for 56% of the total output value of industrial enterprises above the designated size. Suzhou has 76 national - level science and technology business incubators, ranking first in the country; 58 listed companies on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, ranking third in the country; 17,400 high - tech enterprises, ranking fourth in the country; and 21 unicorn enterprises, ranking fourth in the country.
In 2025, 20 new listed companies were added in Suzhou, and on average, one out of every ten new stocks in the country came from Suzhou. An industry insider sighed: "Suzhou is neither the capital nor a municipality directly under the Central Government, but it has achieved such a high level of innovation, thanks to decades of industrial accumulation."
The thickness of the industry has ultimately transformed into a high demand for talents. Currently, the total amount of talent resources in Suzhou has exceeded 4.25 million, including more than