Stably ranked second in the north, Qingdao has nurtured nineteen unicorn companies.

On December 3, 2025, the Unicorn Enterprise 500 Conference was held in Laoshan District. The conference was organized by the China Private Enterprises Research Center of Renmin University of China and the Qingdao Enterprise Federation. The "2025 Global Unicorn Enterprise 500 Report" released at the conference showed that the top seven cities in China with the highest number of unicorn enterprises in 2025 were Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Suzhou, and Qingdao. As of now, Qingdao has cultivated a total of 19 unicorn enterprises, with Qingyuan Crops and Haier New Energy being the newly added unicorn enterprises. Qingdao's unicorn enterprises cover the four core sectors of industrial Internet, new energy, artificial intelligence, and life and health, maintaining a leading position in northern China.