Chinese cities race to attract AI startups amid OpenClaw boom

by Staff reporters

A growing number of Chinese cities are rolling out subsidies and incentives to attract AI startups as the rapid rise of OpenClaw fuels a new wave of developers building AI agents and so-called "one-person companies" (OPC).

OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent framework whose red lobster logo inspired the Chinese internet slang "raising lobsters", referring to training and deploying AI agents to automate tasks or run businesses.

Interest in the framework has surged across China's developer community and among a broader group of AI enthusiasts in recent weeks. Hundreds of developers in the southern tech hub of Shenzhen reportedly queued to try OpenClaw and build AI agents on March 6.

The boom has also triggered competition among local governments eager to attract these startups.

On March 10, authorities in Hefei, the capital of eastern China's Anhui province, said the city's High-Tech Zone had proposed 15 measures to build an ecosystem for AI-driven OPC startups and support open-source projects including OpenClaw.

Eligible projects could receive up to 10 million yuan (US$1.45 million) in support, including computing vouchers and data subsidies, while authorities also plan to open public-sector scenarios such as healthcare, manufacturing and smart-city services for AI-agent testing.

Other cities are moving quickly to introduce similar incentives.

Changshu, in Jiangsu province, has proposed 13 measures to support OPC startups using OpenClaw tools, with projects selected under government talent programmes eligible for up to 6 million yuan in support.

The plan includes deployment services, developer training and access to anonymised government datasets. Service platforms helping developers adopt OpenClaw tools could receive subsidies of up to 3 million yuan.

Changshu is also building OPC startup communities focused on sectors such as embodied intelligence, textile manufacturing, livestream e-commerce and cultural design, aiming to expand the use of AI agents in local industries.

To lower barriers for entrepreneurs, the city is offering additional support including 30 days of free office space, accommodation and meals, rental subsidies of up to 1,500 yuan per month, and housing incentives of as much as 2 million yuan for qualified talent.

Elsewhere, the coastal city of Qingdao has designated 16 industrial parks as the first batch of AI-OPC development zones, to cluster startups around AI-agent technologies.

The moves come as China steps up support for AI development. China's government work report this year for the first time called for creating a new form of the intelligent economy.

At the same time, researchers have warned that open-source AI agents may pose new risks.

GAO Wen, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said tools such as OpenClaw have lowered barriers to entrepreneurship but their open-source nature also raises potential cybersecurity concerns.

Platforms offering AI assistant services should conduct security risk assessments and strengthen oversight as the technology spreads more widely, he said.

For local governments, however, the motivation is largely economic. By offering subsidies, computing resources and real-world AI applications, Chinese cities hope the OpenClaw boom will help nurture a new generation of AI startups.