M50 Creative Park is a major birthplace of Shanghai's creative industry and one of the recommended cultural landmarks in Shanghai by TIME Asia Edition.

From Xinhua Cotton Mill to Chunming Woolen Mill, from industrial architectural remains to graffiti art headquarters, M50 Creative Park has gone through a complex and tortuous development process. In April 2005, M50 Creative Park was listed as one of the first batch of creative industry clusters in Shanghai by the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Informatization. Domestic and foreign professional institutions were invited to carry out protective planning and renovation of the park's appearance. The transformed M50 still retains the appearance of the original industrial buildings while adding modern and fashionable elements. In 2007, M50 Creative Park was approved as a national industrial tourism demonstration site by the National Tourism Administration and has been awarded the title of Shanghai's top 10 most influential excellent creative industry parks for multiple years.

Since the closure and transformation of the factory in 1999, M50 has gone through more than 20 years. Today, M50 has introduced over 160 artist studios, as well as galleries, fashion design, graphic design, and other art institutions from more than 20 countries and regions including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, Japan, etc. It receives over 1.5 million domestic and foreign tourists annually and has hosted numerous domestic and foreign dignitaries. The Queen of Belgium, former Governor General of Canada, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, Mayor of London, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo, and the wife of the Greek Prime Minister, all have made special visits.

M50 is the cradle for the growth and development of contemporary artists. Dozens of influential contemporary artists, such as Yan Peiming, Ding Yi, Gu Wendao, and Xue Song, have started and developed their careers here. M50 is also a place for the inheritance and promotion of national culture, with artist studios such as Zhu’s copper art, a national intangible cultural heritage with master Zhu Bingren as the only inheritor, intangible cultural heritage bamboo weaving workshop, and national intangible cultural heritage Gu embroidery and Su embroidery Chinese-style wedding gown high-end customization workshop.