On 21 July 2025 the Shenzhen Municipal Government Services and Data Management Bureau issued the Operating Rules for the Special Fund for Open Government AI Scenario Applications, effective the same day for two years. The document lands the open-scenario-plus-fiscal-funding tool of industrial policy concretely in the AI field.
Fund size and the way it grants
The special fund provides up to RMB 50 million a year, granted in graded tiers by score: up to RMB 5 million for the first tier, RMB 3 million for the second and RMB 1 million for the third. The recipients are companies that build AI applications on open government scenarios.
The logic of the design is clear: the government does not directly buy a finished product; it first opens a scenario and then uses money to steer companies to build for it. That connects the demand side (government scenarios) with the supply side (AI companies) while keeping competitive selection.
Why government scenarios deserve their own regime
The key difference between government AI and general AI applications is that the data is highly sensitive, results must be explainable, and the responsible party is public authority. Open government scenarios therefore usually come with stricter security and confidentiality requirements. See our note on the guideline for deploying and applying government large models.
Shenzhen’s approach is to handle scenario opening and funding separately: the scenario is provided by the government department with clear boundaries, while the funding is disbursed by the data-management department under rules. What a company receives is not only money but a defined, compliance-ready scenario.
Echoing the AI+ policy line
Such moves at the local level align with the AI+ agenda advanced at the State Council level. See our notes on the State Council’s AI development and deployment and the State Council’s AI+ action opinion.
In the same period Shanghai is also expanding AI applications through subsidy vouchers. See our note on Shanghai’s measures to expand AI applications. The two cities take different routes — Shenzhen emphasises opening scenarios, Shanghai emphasises subsidising the factors of production (compute, models, corpora) — but both aim to lower the threshold for landing AI applications.
What companies should watch when participating
First, distinguish scenario opening from a procurement promise: funding is not an order, and companies must assess the commercialisation path.
Second, front-load government data compliance, setting out the scope of data use, anonymisation requirements and exit mechanisms. See our note on the opinion on data circulation service institutions.
Third, retain compliance evidence, including security assessments, allocation of responsibility and emergency-response records, for later audits and renewals.
Competition in government AI scenarios is, at bottom, competition in compliance capability. Only companies that can deliver reliably and withstand audit are likely to keep winning scenarios and funding on this track. See our note on the action plan for AI application service providers.
This article is based on public information on Shenzhen’s Operating Rules for the Special Fund for Open Government AI Scenario Applications and is for reference only; it does not constitute legal advice.