In recent years, Guangzhou's Tianhe district has been making efforts to boost the digitalization of the cultural industry by releasing a number of preferential policies and providing professional services for enterprises.

To date, the digital cultural industry has become a leading industry in Tianhe. Five major culture industrial areas, including Yangcheng Creative Industrial Park and Tianhe Intelligence Valley, have been formed in the district. As a result, a cultural development pattern has been formed with emerging cultural creative industries like games and animation, e-sports, as well as digital music leading development, while traditional culture and entertainment industries play a subsidiary role.

Dynamic Tianhe district at night. [Photo/WeChat account: gztzth]

There are 863 cultural enterprises above designated size in the district, which have realized 198.1 billion yuan ($27.71 billion) in operating revenue.

The Tianhe central business district (CBD) is home to nearly 20,000 digital service enterprises and over 700 high-tech enterprises, with over 60 billion yuan in operating revenue. In 2021, the added value of core industries in the digital economy exceeded 54.5 billion yuan, accounting for 14.2 percent of the CBD's GDP. The Tianhe Intelligence Business District (IBD) has gathered 84 digital cultural and creative leading enterprises, achieving 65.2 billion yuan in revenue in 2021, up 9 percent year-on-year.

WinSing Animation bought the AT1003026 plot at Tianhe Intelligence Valley in October, with plans to build its headquarters building there.

"We were not familiar with the procedures of plot auction, development, and construction. Tianhe Intelligence Valley has provided one-stop services to help us," said Yan Bing, vice president of WinSing Animation. "Related meetings were also carried out to provide us an in-depth understanding of Tianhe's preferential policies for the animation industry for future development."

A Greater Bay Area digital animation industrial zone, centered on WinSing Animation, is also scheduled to be built on the plot. The zone will have a first-phase investment of 1 billion yuan, and is expected to introduce over 10 digital animation enterprises by 2026, with the scale of this industrial cluster expected to exceed 2 billion yuan.