In Shanghai, on 11 October 2026, 42 top entrepreneurs from 14 countries gathered for the 38th meeting of the mayor's international consultants. They discussed not abstract trends, but concrete ways to turn artificial intelligence and the service industries into sustainable sources of income for global companies and cities.
The theme of the meeting — "promoting the innovative development of Shanghai's service sector" — sounded like a direct signal to investors. Goldman Sachs CEO John Waldron noted the formation of a "supercycle of investment" under the influence of AI. According to him, multinational corporations are already actively implementing their own artificial intelligence solutions, attracting talent and capital. Regulatory transparency and the simplification of cross-border data flows became key recommendations for attracting money.
Shanghai is setting ambitious goals: by 2030, to bring the added value of services to 6 trillion yuan. This is not just a figure — it is a bet on a "resilient base" for the economy, where modern services merge with advanced manufacturing. Private Chinese companies received an invitation to the meeting for the first time, which underscores a shift: local business now not only takes advice, but also offers its own solutions in AI and robotics.
Particular attention was paid to "going abroad." Banks like DBS help Chinese firms with financial technologies, cross-border payments in yuan and sustainable financing. At the same time, Western CEOs are actively exchanging contacts with Shanghai startups in the field of embodied AI — robots capable of working in real manufacturing. This is not charity: companies are looking for new markets and supply chains where AI reduces costs and accelerates growth.
Investors see Shanghai not merely as a market, but as a long-term partner. In recent years, hundreds of regional headquarters and R&D centers of foreign firms have opened here. The volume of direct foreign investment is growing, and the three leading industries — chips, biomedicine and AI — have already exceeded 2 trillion yuan. Entrepreneurs emphasize: success requires not five- or ten-year plans, but a readiness to grow together with the city for decades, investing in talent and infrastructure.
For the private investor, this is a signal: capital is increasingly moving to where regulatory predictability, access to data and human potential combine. AI in services is not a fashionable term, but a tool that is already changing how companies earn and how global wealth is distributed. Those who see these flows before others will gain an advantage in the next decade.
