By the end of last year, the total scale of seven national strategic emerging industrial clusters in Shandong had reached 1.3 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 9.1% in the past three years; that of 25 provincial strategic emerging industrial clusters in Shandong had exceeded 1.5 trillion yuan. In the review of the first batch of national strategic emerging industrial clusters by the National Development and Reform Commission of China this year, Shandong's three national industrial clusters including Yantai's advanced structural materials were rated as "excellent."

At present, Shandong is working hard to promote collaborative innovation within emerging industrial clusters, explore the establishment of collaborative innovation centers for industrial chains, and give priority to the construction of a number of innovation platforms at the provincial level and above such as industrial innovation centers, enterprise technology centers, and engineering research centers. Shandong's seven national strategic emerging industrial clusters possess 91 national innovation platforms including the National Industrial Innovation Center for Cloud Computing Equipment and the National Innovation Center of High Speed Train. In total, Shandong is home to more than 800 provincial innovation platforms and 354 public R&D service institutions. Thus, a complete innovation chain that covers breakthroughs in generic technology, pilot testing and verification, and achievement transformation and application has been gradually improved.