Local governments in China, including Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, are offering subsidised offices, computing vouchers, cloud AI models and cash to attract filmmakers and start-ups producing AI video. The incentives fit Beijing's wider approach of building domestic AI industries through local tech clusters.
Zhu Zhili, who runs AI content at China Wit Media, moved his studio to Shenzhen two years ago and works from a shared space backed by the city and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He says other cities and industrial parks now approach him regularly to relocate, and lists cheap rent, a living allowance and computing support among the incentives.
Costs are falling fast. State broadcaster CCTV says AI short dramas dropped from about 5,000 yuan a minute to a few hundred in the first half of 2026, and a Hainan film student said a wedding scene costing some 60,000 yuan conventionally cost him about 1,400 with AI.
Cheaper production gives independent filmmakers and small studios more room to try things. The boom also brings worries about oversupply, copyright and actors' likenesses, and about whether audiences will keep watching as volume grows.
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