Free housing, offices, and up to $720,000 subsidies: Chinese cities go all in on OpenClaw startups

• Some Chinese cities are going all in on "raising the lobster" — backing startups building on OpenClaw.
• Free housing, rent-free offices, and subsidies up to $720,000 are among the incentives on offer.
• The push comes as OpenClaw gains traction in China's tech circles.

Free housing. Discounted office space. Cash subsidies worth up to $720,000.

These are some of the perks local governments in China would offer to lure startups and developers building on OpenClaw.

In the high-tech zone of Wuxi in Eastern China, Chinese officials announced in a policy draft published on the city's official WeChat account on Monday that it is supporting what Chinese developers call "raising the lobster" — a nickname for deploying OpenClaw agents to perform automated tasks.

The draft outlined 12 measures to support startups and developers working with the AI agent, which began circulating widely in tech circles earlier this year.

Projects building industrial AI applications — such as predictive maintenance or quality inspection systems — could receive rewards of 500,000 yuan, or $72,000. Major breakthroughs involving robotics or embodied AI could qualify for subsidies of up to 5 million yuan, or $720,000, the draft wrote.

Startups using OpenClaw may also receive rent-free office space for up to three years, along with living subsidies for "outstanding contributors to the OpenClaw open-source community who are starting a business in the district for the first time," it added.

Designed to operate around the clock, OpenClaw can plug into a range of consumer apps to automate tasks such as scheduling, monitoring vibe-coding sessions, or creating AI employees. Its creator, Peter Steinberger, joined OpenAI last month to help develop what Sam Altman has called the "next generation" of personal AI agents.

Shenzhen's Longgang district, a major tech hub in southern China, on Saturday published a similar draft proposal offering subsidies of up to 2 million yuan, or $290,000, for projects tied to the OpenClaw ecosystem.

"Projects contributing key code to mainstream international communities, developing and listing skill packages related to Longgang's advantageous industries on skill trading platforms, and developing applications integrated with embodied intelligent devices will receive subsidies of up to 2 million yuan upon verification," the draft proposal said.

Officials in Shenzhen's Longgang district said newly registered or relocated one-person startups may get up to two months of free accommodation and up to "18 months of preferential office space" under a "one desk, one office, one floor" workspace system designed to lower barriers for new teams. Young talents relocating to the district could also receive a settlement subsidy of up to 100,000 yuan.

'Raising the lobster'

The policy push comes as OpenClaw continues to generate buzz in China's tech circles.

Tencent's Shenzhen headquarters drew a queue of nearly a thousand people last week, all waiting for engineers to help install OpenClaw at no charge, according to local media reports.

On the Chinese social media platform RedNote, posts about people offering paid OpenClaw installation services have circulated widely. In one post published last week, a user said some installers had earned as much as 260,000 yuan, or $36,000, in just a few days helping others set up and configure the software.

The AI tool has also raised concerns about privacy and security risks.

In early February, China's National Vulnerability Database, operated by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, issued a warning about potential security risks linked to the open-source AI agent.

The notice said that some OpenClaw deployments could pose significant security risks if improperly configured, potentially exposing users to cyberattacks and data leaks.