The Report on the Work of the Government during the two sessions in 2023 pointed out that one of China’s priorities this year is to pool quality resources and make concerted efforts to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields and accelerate R&D and application promotion of cutting-edge technologies. Currently, a new round of industrial transformation led by ChatGPT is posing new requirements to the sci-tech innovation ecosystem and governance system. Accelerating the establishment of an independent sci-tech system is a key underpinning for successful Chinese modernization.

As ChatGPT continues to gain popularity, consumers’ expectations for its future development are growing. At this point, it’s important to not only examine the process from ChatGPT’s technology R&D to creation of the product- and service-oriented architecture and its application but also focus on the regional innovation ecosystem that produced this breakthrough. In reality, the well-known OpenAI is merely one of the many renowned businesses in the San Francisco-San Jose region. According to the Global Innovation Hubs Index 2022 released by the Center for Industrial Development and Environmental Governance of Tsinghua University, the San Francisco-San Jose region is home to 53 top-tier scientific award winners from around the globe, 289 unicorn enterprises, and high-tech industries that are growing quickly. These enterprises have a market capitalization of nearly USD 8 trillion, making them the most valuable in the world’s sci-tech and industrial competition. Therefore, we can deduce that the San Francisco-San Jose region’s regional innovation ecosystem, which is globally competitive, plays an important role in the development of high-growth innovative enterprises.

An innovation ecosystem involves talent, technology, capital, information, infrastructure, social culture, entrepreneurial spirit, institutional supply and others. Behind the remarkable ChatGPT are the OpenAI technology and business teams, which are able to identify, abstract and build potential market demands; supercomputing infrastructure, which can continuously provide strong computing power; researchers who concentrate on algorithm improvement; massive data resources; widespread application scenarios; highly discerning venture capital companies, which have the patience to wait and can afford to lose money; and a group of foreign workers who are specialized in data annotation and work for pay of less than USD 2 per hour. Besides these elements, it’s also crucial to acknowledge the unremitting efforts made by top enterprises in the region to enhance the ecological niche, including forward-looking R&D layouts, building of data barriers and development of technical standards and governance rules.

A regional innovation ecosystem is developed by an interaction process of market logic and policy logic. On the one hand, enterprises, universities, research institutions and various socio-economic organizations, driven by common market expectations, achieve dynamic adaptation and autonomous matchmaking in terms of entity interaction, element sharing, action coordination and mechanism linkage. On the other hand, local governments, in coordination with other entities, make overall arrangements in terms of sci-tech innovation conditions and capacity building, policy design and institutional supply, and promote the integration of a well-functioning government and an efficient market, based on the major strategic plans of the central government and the actual demands of local economic and social development. A regional innovation ecosystem, which is the product of government regulation and moderate intervention, has distinct market characteristics.

For governance of regional innovation ecosystems oriented toward future industries, it is necessary to probe into innovation ecosystem traits that align with the development of future industries, and improve comprehension of their laws of evolution. Moreover, it is required to accurately predict the development trends of future industries, take advantage of significant growth prospects, spot probable “market failures”, capitalize on momentum, and practice governance in light of the circumstances.

Firstly, regional innovation ecosystems oriented toward future industries have diversity. Similar to how nature takes diverse forms, regional innovation ecosystems come in a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on their disciplinary advantages, industrial bases, and their positions in the innovation and industrial chains. Some regions have a large number of colleges and universities, a talented population and major research infrastructure, and new findings from strategy-based basic research are constantly being produced. Some regions gather functional resources and continually produce high-value invention patents. Some regions have well-developed industrial systems and solid manufacturing foundations, enabling them to quickly transform technical concepts into products and services. As for the governance practice, it’s essential to develop governance plans that take use of the region’s strengths and prevent its flaws while also taking into account its basic conditions and development vision.

Secondly, the development of future industries is heavily reliant on the strength of basic research, and it often involves significant advances in cutting-edge scientific research and has a high degree of uncertainty regarding its direction, intensity, pace and path. To confront such uncertainty with greater confidence, this necessitates thorough mental and professional preparations. First, a proactive approach should be taken for the planning of basic research in relevant fields to provide the necessary strategic depth and research reserve. Second, the construction of information infrastructure and large scientific facilities should be accelerated, with a focus on improving their operational performance. Third, science-education integration, industry-education integration, and practice scenarios for talent cultivation should all be pushed to lay a solid talent foundation for future industries.

Lastly, the development of future industries has two sides. On the one hand, future industries have the potential to greatly improve production efficiency, fundamentally alter human production, lifestyle and governance paradigms, and resolve or significantly reduce the primary development barriers that mankind is currently experiencing. On the other hand, they may provide a series of risks that are challenging for people to manage and take, with potentially disastrous results. Therefore, it’s important to focus on enhancing the “resilience” of regional innovation ecosystem governance. First, there should be “preparedness”, i.e., taking precautions and making an effort to build a risk prediction and early warning system for the forward-looking governance of future industries. Second, there should be “redundancy”, i.e., planning ahead for emergency capabilities, deployment of materials, social and psychological development, etc. and continuously enhancing the “toolbox” of contingency plans to ensure more proactive responses in the event of emergencies.

For the governance of regional innovation ecosystems oriented toward future industries, there is no uniform model that can be used everywhere. The scientific governance goal will be accomplished by carefully implementing policies based on a thorough understanding of the characteristics and evolution laws of regional innovation ecosystems. This implies that different geographical areas may have their own distinctive ways to govern.