By the end of August, some technological upgrade projects had been finished, increasing the pace at which the zone can replace old economic development drivers with new ones.

Shandong Ipre Inspection Technology, a quality management equipment developer in the zone, has joined forces with four leading Chinese universities including Zhejiang University and Beijing University of Technology to develop testing equipment, aiming to better serve businesses keen to achieve good results in the Industry 4.0 era. Ipre's management believes that quality control equipment in China will become more intelligent and advanced in industrial upgrade process.

Fu Dongyi, general manager of Ipre, said connecting traditional quality control equipment to the internet allows the company to promote its business model, called Software as a Service, or SaaS. Under this model, businesses will be able to use the quality control equipment for free but will pay for the software.

Fu said the project reduces work pressure on quality controllers and increases their efficiency and accuracy. The model will also push the company out from homogenization and reduce companies' reliance on some imported testing equipment.

In the first half of 2018, companies in the zone reported an overall value of industrial throughput of 47.7 billion yuan, an increase of 12.7 percent year-on-year. Of that total, high-tech companies contributed 35.3 billion yuan, an increase of 10.6 percent year-on-year.

Cui Chengwang contributed to this story.