A senior Shanghai delegate and the chairman of cloud provider UCloud has urged the city to accelerate development of so‑called “space compute” — the integration of satellite constellations, on‑orbit processing and ground networks — arguing that the technology is entering a decisive phase from proof‑of‑concept to scaled deployment.
Ji Xinhua, a deputy to Shanghai’s municipal people’s congress and UCloud’s chairman and CEO, filed four formal proposals ahead of the city’s 2026 two‑sessions. He framed space compute as both an economic opportunity and a measure of national technological strength, citing a market estimate that the global space compute sector could reach $24.94 billion in 2026 and grow at a compounded annual rate of about 15% through 2035.
Ji did not gloss over the obstacles. He identified core technical shortfalls in starborne radiation‑hardened CPUs and GPUs, high‑speed inter‑satellite laser links, in‑orbit data‑center integration and integrated space‑ground scheduling systems. He described an incomplete domestic supply chain — from upstream hardware through constellation operators to downstream applications — and flagged high R&D costs, long development cycles and insufficient financing channels as constraints on commercialisation.
To overcome those hurdles, Ji proposed a package of measures tailored to Shanghai. He called for a dedicated “Shanghai Space Compute Technology Breakthrough” programme to concentrate research resources and for the establishment of a national key laboratory in Shanghai, combined with an in‑orbit technology demonstration platform. The idea is to bring together aerospace institutes, universities and private firms in cross‑disciplinary consortia to prototype and test layered capabilities spanning edge, cloud and distributed computing in space.
On industrial policy, Ji urged the city to cultivate local anchors and clusters: help homegrown aerospace firms extend into space compute, form an industry alliance that links chips, satellites, launches, operations and applications, and prioritise pilot projects in municipal services such as emergency management, meteorology, financial risk control and intelligent transport. He also suggested coordinating with neighbouring Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui to pool manufacturing, compute infrastructure and application markets across the Yangtze Delta.
Ji linked Shanghai’s space ambitions to domestic constellations and national projects, pressing for active engagement with programmes such as China Star Network and Qianfan, and for alignment with major state endeavours including deep‑space missions and space station work so that civilian and scientific platforms can be mutually reinforcing.
Beyond orbital hardware, Ji turned to the terrestrial compute stack. He proposed creating a formal standard for adapting software to domestically produced GPUs and mobilising collaboration between local chipmakers (named in his proposals), leading universities and cloud providers to optimise AI large models, autonomous driving stacks and bioinformatics workloads for Chinese silicon. He urged government procurement to seed adoption of “domestic GPU + local AI framework” full‑stack solutions in sensitive sectors such as finance, healthcare and government services.
Ji also sketched an initiative to accelerate scientific research with AI: expand the municipal compute scheduling system to create an “AI for Science (AI4S) public compute pool” that consolidates idle capacity at universities and research institutes, and set up a Shanghai AI4S Agile Governance Centre drawing in scientists, ethicists, lawyers and industry leaders to steward use‑cases and risk management.
Finally, he connected these technical measures to Shanghai’s broader drive to be a digital gateway for Chinese companies going abroad. Building on the city’s 2023–26 new‑infrastructure plan — which aims to link core nodes such as Lingang and Hongqiao to overseas interconnection points — Ji advocated an international rules‑adaptation service, deeper coordination with Hong Kong and Singapore, and a ‘digital export cloud‑station’ to support cross‑border services.
Ji’s proposals map a comprehensive municipal playbook: combine mission‑oriented public funding, a research‑to‑demonstration pipeline, industrial clustering, software standards and governance structures. If implemented at scale, they would accelerate China’s strategic push into an area where commercial and national security interests converge, but they also rest on heavy state coordination, significant capital and successful domestic chip‑software co‑development.
For international observers, the proposals are notable not only for their technical ambition but for what they reveal about the priorities of China’s technology policymaking: closing gaps in foundational capabilities, leveraging regional coordination to build ecosystems, and using public procurement and pilot projects to create market demand. The path from demonstration to commercially viable services remains long, and success will depend on breakthroughs in radiation‑tolerant computing, on‑orbit assembly and high‑capacity inter‑satellite communications, together with viable financing models for capital‑intensive programmes.