Headquarters and R&D centers of global enterprises are important innovators for Shanghai today. Gao Erqiang / China Daily

Shanghai ranked third after Tokyo and Silicon Valley, California, in the number of global and regional research and development (R&D) headquarters, said the city's business administration.

The number of foreign R&D centers based in Shanghai hit 378 by the end of September - a quarter of all the centers in China. One third of the centers belong to the world's top 500 enterprises. And foreign investment accounts for about half of the R&D in Shanghai, which contributes to more than two-thirds of the production value and sales revenue of new products in Shanghai, said Gu Jun, vice-director of the Shanghai municipal commission of commerce, in a forum on Shanghai's R&D last week in Shanghai.

"Foreign enterprises' R&D centers contribute a large number of professional talents, capital and other innovative factors to Shanghai," Gu said. "The spillover effects and economic benefits of these foreign-funded R&D centers become more and more obvious, and the area they can influence is becoming larger and larger," Gu said.

"The innovative fruits from Shanghai now benefit the whole world in relevant industries," he said. "Foreign-funded R&D centers have become an important part of Shanghai's technological innovation mechanism."

Qian Wei, director of the Shanghai R&D center with Rockwell Automation Inc, said: "The Shanghai R&D center is one of the company's four major advanced technology labs with the most research staff. Most of the R&D staff are from China."

The center in Shanghai has obtained 35 patents in the United States. Shanghai center takes the lead in or participates in the research and development of four of the company's 23 important new products in recent years.

Many representatives of the Shanghai Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment also presented their research findings on "smart city" construction during the forum.

GE (China) Co Ltd introduced the application of its new products on distributed energy sources. BASF (China) Co Ltd presented its innovation in improving technological processes. Microsoft (China) Co Ltd introduced how cloud and big data can serve a smart city in transportation, logistics, epidemic control, employment analysis, economic prediction and modern government.

"Shanghai has a unique advantage compared with the other Chinese cities and should encourage more R&D centers to move to Shanghai in the future, especially in the industries that the city needs most, such as new energy, biotechnology and information technology," said Jiang Yiren, chairman of the Shanghai economic organization union. "Shanghai will become a global city. The foreign R&D resources are indispensible in Shanghai's future development."