The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) STAR 100 Index, which tracks the performance of companies from China's Nasdaq-style sci-tech innovation board, known as the STAR Market, went online on August 7. The index provides real-time information on the science and technology-focused equities market.

According to the SSE, the STAR 100 Index selects 100 securities from the STAR Market with medium-sized market capitalization and good liquidity as index samples. The 100 companies tracked by the new index are newly selected ones apart from those already tracked by the STAR 50 Index.

The STAR 100 Index and STAR 50 Index have together formed the scale-based index series of the SSE STAR Market, reflecting the overall performance of securities of listed companies on the STAR Market with different scales in terms of market capitalization, according to the SSE.

The two indices currently track companies that account for up to 66 percent of the total market capitalization of listed firms on the STAR Market, according to the SSE.

SSE data showed that the STAR 100 Index sample companies' total investment in research and development reached 28.9 billion yuan (about $4 billion) in 2022, accounting for 19 percent of their business revenues.