"Lobster" swims into Dishui Lake: Shanghai Lingang's "one-person company" experiment

Reprinted from China Business Journal

Reporter Yang Rangchen and Shi Yingjing, Shanghai

“This year before the Spring Festival, our company and a fellow community-based second-dimensional company held discussions on going global.” On March 10, 2026, cross-border e-commerce practitioner Liang Ruiqing told China Business Journal. As one of the first entrepreneurs to settle in the Shanghai Lingang D Water Lake Zero Boundary Cube OPC (One Person Company) community in October 2025, Liang Ruiqing’s company’s sales scale has already become a leader in a niche segment of the Japanese market.

“This is partly due to a series of preferential policies offered by the community.” Liang Ruiqing calculated a timeline for the reporter: before settling in the OPC community, operating an overseas e-commerce platform took 8-9 hours for product pricing and selection. But at the Zero Boundary Cube OPC community in Shanghai Lingang New Area, thanks to AI tools, this time cost has been greatly reduced—“AI can automatically help us with pricing and listing.”

Many entrepreneurs like Liang Ruiqing are also present in the Zero Boundary Cube OPC community, where a “micro-revolution” in smart economy and “one-person companies” is unfolding. Data provided by officials related to Zero Boundary Cube shows that as of now, Building No. 3, with an area of about 8,700 square meters, is nearly fully occupied. Since opening in October 2025, the community has attracted about 150 projects, with approximately 500 people actually settled in.

This year, the “Government Work Report” for the first time proposed creating a new form of smart economy, deepening the “Artificial Intelligence+” initiative, promoting the rapid adoption of next-generation smart terminals and intelligent agents, and scaling up AI commercialization in key industries, cultivating new business models and formats rooted in intelligence. It also supports the development of open-source AI communities to foster a thriving open ecosystem.

Although distant from downtown Shanghai, the Zero Boundary Cube OPC community exerts a “super attraction.” Currently, the community is creating all favorable conditions for its residents. In addition to providing AI trial tools such as “Lobster” (OpenClaw, an AI agent), Zero Boundary Cube is also introducing leading enterprises, leveraging Lingang New Area’s industrial advantages to connect “one-person companies” and accelerate their integration into the local industrial chain.

“One-Person Company” Settles in Lingang OPC Community

“Currently, our sales scale has already become a leader in a niche segment of the Japanese market,” Liang Ruiqing told the reporter. Since settling in the Zero Boundary Cube OPC community, the business has grown rapidly. The cross-border e-commerce operation sources from factories in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, and Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, selling via TikTok live streams to Japan. Since July 2025, Liang Ruiqing’s sales have reached 130 million yen, while the total market size in this niche segment in Japan is only about 2.3 billion yen (roughly 100 million RMB).

Liang Ruiqing admitted that besides platform benefits, the policies of Zero Boundary Cube’s OPC have also greatly helped his business expansion. “As a startup, the community not only provides office space but also free accommodation, easing a lot of burdens for entrepreneurs like me. Before settling in, besides business pressures, paying rent was also a significant expense.”

According to officials from Zero Boundary Cube, the community currently waives rent for the first three years for resident companies and offers free talent apartments for one year. In the fourth and fifth years, rent discounts of half are still provided, with similar benefits for talent apartments in the second year.

With a series of favorable policies and technological support from Zero Boundary Cube, Liang Ruiqing believes the company’s growth potential has increased. “Before AI intervention, I never imagined the company could achieve its current results,” he said. He doesn’t yet know the upper limit of his company’s growth but hopes to continue developing positively. “Currently, I’ve started engaging with investors, but the company needs more than just funding—resources are also crucial.”

In fact, it’s not only “one-person companies” that are interested in Zero Boundary Cube. Unlike Liang Ruiqing, Chen Lixin, before settling in the community, had already accumulated about 3,400 clients in his exhibition intelligent marketing business, covering Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, as well as Xinjiang and foreign markets like ASEAN and the Middle East. Chen’s AI enterprise mainly targets Vietnam and Malaysia, but he also chose to settle in Zero Boundary Cube.

“Now, I spend four hours daily commuting across Shanghai.” Despite the time spent, Chen Lixin sees Zero Boundary Cube as a resource connector that his company lacks. “It gathers a matrix of ‘super individuals,’ and with the community’s high acceptance of internet and AI, our products can empower the community.”

A community official told the reporter that the community aims to retain startups through various measures. “We provide some enterprise services and policy support. For high-quality ‘super individuals,’ we also offer matching funds, startup loans, and incubation arrangements, hoping these ‘super individuals’ will settle and root in Lingang.”

“Super Individuals” Collaborate to “Raise Lobsters”

The reporter learned that for entrepreneurs, settling in OPC communities offers not only tangible policies and funding support but also intangible resources and a collaborative ecosystem.

“AI’s efficiency is indeed higher than manual operations,” Liang Ruiqing said. His company built an AI system that significantly shortens product selection time.

“Currently, OpenClaw is very popular, and the community is installing it for residents free of charge,” the official from Zero Boundary Cube said. With the new AI tools launched, the community will allow companies to try them out and will try to meet demand. They are also promoting the AIstore empowerment platform to help companies reduce costs related to computing power, models, and tools, while guiding “super individual” project teams to “raise lobsters.”

However, OPC entrepreneurs also face challenges with AI technology. “Without an AI background, I encounter difficulties with underlying code that I can’t access, and I can only keep ‘feeding’ commands for adjustments,” Liang Ruiqing explained. AI tools can also produce bugs, requiring continuous iteration and adjustment to achieve high-quality output.

In Liang Ruiqing’s view, AI is not万能, and there is a “critical point.” The actual products launched into the market may not always perform well. “Although AI technology’s popularization is an irreversible trend, building and training models still require human intervention. As the business continues to grow, the company also needs to cultivate talent skilled in AI to assist with work.”

To address these issues, Zero Boundary Cube plays another role: helping OPC connect upstream and downstream, establishing an industrial ecosystem, and promoting community collaboration.

The official said that the community is introducing leading enterprises to facilitate connections among upstream and downstream companies within the ecosystem. “Some companies are still in early stages, exploring their business models. The community is also building a closed loop—for example, a company mainly engaged in financial system development can share its products at salons and create synergy with ‘super individuals’ inside the building.”

“Here, there are many ‘super individuals.’ After settling in, companies can first achieve business empowerment within the community,” Chen Lixin said. Zero Boundary Cube attracts many “one-person companies.” His own company in Lingang is just starting out, but with AI capabilities from existing operations, it has the potential to become a leading enterprise. The community also prioritizes promoting products within the community to help “one-person companies” develop rapidly at equitable prices using AI.

Chen Lixin also mentioned that the Zero Boundary Cube OPC community is located in the Lingang New Area Management Committee zone, which can help companies connect to more resources. With leading enterprises continuously settling in, related supply chain companies will gradually join, driving the overall ecosystem development.

“To develop in Lingang, our company has launched the ‘Ten Thousand and Thousand Plan,’ aiming to support 10,000 entrepreneurs by 2026. Through affordable products, we help users reduce costs and increase efficiency, becoming marketing partners for OPC and small and medium-sized enterprises,” Chen Lixin said.