Harbin Science and Technology Innovation City -- known as "the Smart Valley of Northern China" -- was approved by the Harbin municipal government in 2009 in line with the city’s new industry development strategy.

It is located in Harbin -- capital of China’s northernmost province of Heilongjiang and is north of the Songhua River, with Sun Island across the street in the east, the airport highway in the west and University Science City in the north.
 
It has a total planned area of 130 square kilometers and comprises of a 20 sq km Science and Technology Innovation Park and 110 sq km Science and Technology Industrial Park.
 
Industrial layout

Harbin Science and Technology Innovation Park focuses on the development of five major industrial clusters, including modern electronics information industry clusters, biomedical industry clusters, optical-mechatronics industrial clusters, new materials industrial clusters and advanced energy and environmental protection industrial clusters
 
On March 22, 2010, the groundbreaking ceremony for construction of the infrastructure and R & D projects at Harbin Science and Technology Innovation City was held in Songbei district.
 
The first three R&D projects that started construction were the Harbin Welding Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Mechanical Science, the Harbin Institute of Electrical Instrumentation and a project for Heilongjiang Zhongke Fangde Software Co Ltd.
 
At present, a total of 235 projects being developed by  160 enterprises and institutes have signed contracts with Harbin Science and Technology Innovation City to move there.
 
Among them are 14 large-scale R & D projects, which have a construction area of more than 1.6 million square meters and a total investment of more than 6 billion yuan ($860 million).