2025 Shanghai Science Festival kicks off with focus on innovation, technology

The 2025 Shanghai Science Festival, a two-week celebration of scientific innovation and technological advancement, opened on Saturday with multiple events targeting especially youngsters across the city.

The annual Festival will host nearly 2,000 events on basic and frontier topics, with shows, workshops, and forums. Fifty key laboratories and major scientific facilities will welcome public visitors.

At the opening ceremony on Saturday, some humanoid robots debuted on the red carpet alongside people, symbolizing the harmonious integration of human innovation and artificial intelligence.

The Shanghai Science Festival started in 1991 as China's first government-led and the world's second city-named science festival. It has become a crucial platform for public engagement with science and innovation activities.

Forty-eight science education bases will offer special admission rates in this year's festival.

2025 Shanghai Science Festival kicks off with focus on innovation, technology

China's outstanding aggregate social financing -- the total amount of financing to the real economy -- reached 442.12 trillion yuan (about 63.4 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of 2025, up 8.3 percent year on year, central bank data showed on Thursday.

The country's aggregate social financing stood at 35.6 trillion yuan (about 5.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, up by 3.34 trillion yuan (about 479 billion U.S. dollars) from the year 2024, said the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank.

According to the data, the M2, a broad measure of money supply that covers cash in circulation and all deposits, increased 8.5 percent year on year to 340.29 trillion yuan (about 48.8 trillion U.S. dollars) as of the end of December.

In addition, outstanding yuan loans stood at 271.91 trillion yuan (about 39 trillion U.S. dollars) at the end of 2025, up 6.4 percent year on year.

China's aggregate social financing maintains high growth in 2025