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21st Century Business Herald reporter Sun Yan reports from Shanghai

On August 12, the shortlisted results for the 2024 "Shanghai Design 100+" were announced, and 300 works entered the public voting stage.

Among them, the work "Opening World Earth Day with AI! Building a "Non-Plastic Relationship" and Creating "Sustainable Romance"" by Guangdong 21st Century Business Herald Newspaper Co., Ltd. was shortlisted in the Insight into the Future section.

The 2024 "Shanghai Design 100+" collected 2,745 outstanding design works from around the world, an increase of 8% year-on-year. After expert review and industry classification, a total of 300 works entered the public voting stage, divided into five theme sections: empowering industry, fashionable life, healthy life, serving the city, and insight into the future.

The relevant person in charge introduced that the "Shanghai Design 100+" will be produced based on the voting results of the public, international and domestic expert groups, and industry departments. The top 100 list will be announced at the "2024 World Design Capital Conference" in late September. "Supply and demand matching meetings will be organized in the future to help companies with strong design capabilities and companies with design procurement needs to match up and help with subsequent industrial transformation."

Lou Yongqi, vice president of Tongji University, pointed out that in a highly technological industry, design is not only about shaping the appearance, but also an important integrating force of function, structure, material, service, system and user experience, which determines whether the product can meet the challenges of stringent performance, safety standards, market competition and user experience.

Design empowers industry

The "Shanghai Design 100+" solicitation and selection, which was launched in 2020, has been upgraded to the 2024 "Shanghai Design 100+" global competition this year.

Relevant person in charge told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the innovative achievements of the first four sessions of design empowerment industries were mainly concentrated in new energy vehicles, aircraft, ships, robots, major equipment, etc. "Shanghai Design 100+" as a whole closely follows the forefront of industrial development, and humanoid robots may be a hot topic this year."

In the design-enabled industry sector, this year's selected works include new energy vehicles, aerospace, shipbuilding and offshore engineering, high-end equipment, smart terminals, robots, industrial control and other types.

Specifically, they include new energy vehicle works such as NIO ET9, aerospace works such as the tilt-rotor electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft E20 eVTOL, ship and marine works such as the world's first compressed natural gas (CNG) carrier, high-end equipment works such as Unisoc's first 5G IoT-NTN satellite communication SoC chip, smart terminal works such as portable multi-functional mobile digital humans, robot works such as the Fourier universal humanoid robot GR-1, and industrial control works such as the Mogine industrial digital twin system.

Lou Yongqi commented that the rise of local design power in new energy vehicles has made Chinese brands take the lead in the world in many fields such as product styling, functional design, human-computer interaction, and supply chain management. Relatively speaking, the deep involvement and contribution of design in my country's aerospace and shipbuilding fields are still in the ascendant. In new tracks such as drones and eVTOL, China has presented a number of excellent works with independent intellectual property rights in aerodynamics, high-strength lightweight structures, material applications, system integration, and user experience.

In the empowering industry sector, this year's "Shanghai Design 100+" newly established the Green Sustainable Design Award. The shortlisted works include the "solar storage, charging, replacement and inspection" integrated energy port, OceanONE liquid-cooled energy storage container, etc.

"Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been destroying the earth in an industrialized way. To restore the earth's environmental capacity to a level of sustainable development, we must repair the earth on a large scale, quickly and professionally in an industrialized way." Lou Yongqi pointed out that from redesigning and optimizing responsible lifestyles to responsible production methods and even the operation of the entire economy and society, design and design thinking have made huge contributions and have broad prospects.

Building a world-class "design capital"

Since Shanghai joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in 2010, its creative and design industries have flourished.

The creative and design industries mainly include industrial design, architectural design, fashion design, digital design, service design, etc. The 21st Century Business Herald reporter learned that industrial design and fashion design are updated quickly and the competition is fierce, while architectural design is relatively stable.

Data shows that from 2012 to 2019, the average annual compound growth rate of the added value of Shanghai's creative design industry was 13.98%, among which industrial design increased by 14.64%, fashion design increased by 17.31%, architectural design increased by 7.84%, and digital design increased by 16.85%.

In 2019, Shanghai's creative design industry achieved an added value of more than 332.976 billion yuan, accounting for more than 8.73% of Shanghai's GDP, ranking among the top in the country.

In February 2022, Shanghai issued the "Several Opinions on Building Shanghai into a World-Class 'Design City'", aiming to maintain an average annual double-digit growth in the total output of the creative and design industries, exceeding 2 trillion yuan by 2025.

Focusing on the innovative development of the industry driven by design, the "Several Opinions on Building Shanghai into a World-Class "Design City"" puts forward four points: First, with the requirements of integrated engineering, aesthetics, and economics principles in industrial design and digital design, strengthen the application of scientific and technological achievements, information technology, and green design, and build the core competitiveness of the industry. Second, empower leading industries, strengthen the design of integrated circuits such as high-end processors, memory, and image processors, focus on the design of products and technologies such as biomedicine and medical devices, and break through the design of core artificial intelligence algorithms such as ultra-large-scale general models and computing frameworks. Third, lead key industries, promote the comprehensive improvement of the design capabilities of industries such as electronic information, life and health, automobiles, high-end equipment, and new materials, focus on new energy and intelligent networked vehicles, aerospace, shipbuilding and marine engineering, energy conservation and environmental protection, software and information services, and smart terminals, and strengthen the design innovation capabilities and system integration capabilities of key core links. Fourth, strengthen industrial services, enhance the creative design capabilities of the advertising industry, promote digital transformation, enhance the planning, design, digitalization, and greening levels of the exhibition industry, enhance the brand design and management capabilities of the consulting industry, and create a sustainable business model.

"Design, like technology, has become one of the two important engines for generating breakthrough innovations." Lou Yongqi pointed out that in order for my country to move from a "manufacturing power" to an "innovation powerhouse," it is necessary to rapidly enhance the design competitiveness of my country's industries and brands.