A view of China Artificial Intelligence Town in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province on January 8, 2025. Photo: VCG
As DeepSeek has emerged in the field of generative AI, and Unitree Robotics' humanoid robots has taken the center stage at China's state broadcaster CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, global attention is shifting to Hangzhou, the capital city of East China's Zhejiang Province where the well-known Alibaba Group is also based.
Many are left wondering: what unique environment in China is fostering a new wave of technology stars that will help reshape the future of innovations?
Against the odds of escalating US suppression and coercion on China's high-tech sector, DeepSeek has overcome grave difficulties to become a global star in human-reasoning AI model, which has led to revaluation by global investment giants of Chinese assets, such as stocks of Chinese high-tech companies.
All-out endeavors It's not just DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics pushing the boundaries of innovation - a growing number of tech upstarts in Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other Chinese cities, including BrainCo, Game Science, DEEP Robotics, Manycore Tech and more, are also making waves.
Nevertheless, Hangzhou city is particularly unique and also endowed, which enables it to attract the top-caliber talent.
"Let's continue to make advanced technology, renewed innovation, and vigorously developing new-quality productive forces become the strongest urge of the time in 2025," Yao Gaoyuan, Hangzhou mayor, said at the city's "first meeting of the year". Many Chinese cities held their first meetings of the Year of the Snake on the very first working day, following the eight-day Spring Festival holiday.
The 2025 government work report of Zhejiang Province outlined plans to support Hangzhou in becoming a leading AI hub in the world, setting a target of achieving at least 6.5 percent growth in the added value of the leading digital enterprises this year. Hangzhou has been enhancing policy support for the cutting-edge tech upstarts.
Eight years ago, city officials traveled to the US to invite Han Bicheng, an entrepreneur who had built a business there and was planning to return to China, to establish his company in Hangzhou. Han's company focuses on brain-computer interface technology.
"The government agencies, along with my team, discussed the future development and application of brain-computer interface innovations. The city's genuine interest and true commitment to innovation, and respect for talent is impressive," Han told the Global Times on Tuesday.
Han said that returning to China to grow his business was his "best decision." Compared to abroad, China offers a large pool of talented people, a complete industrial chain for precision manufacturing, and vast market potential.
Hangzhou is known as the "internet city," with a thriving innovation ecosystem. The local government places high priority on tech innovation, said Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.
Hangzhou has announced an increase in its annual budget from 49 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) last year to 50.2 billion yuan this year, aiming to support the growth of innovative companies like DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics.
Additionally, Hangzhou city benefits from abundant resources in higher education and research institutions, providing strong talent support and intellectual backing for high-tech companies. And the city's dynamic capital market has offered favorable conditions for financing and the development of tech upstarts. Together, these factors have fueled the rapid rise of many high-tech companies in the city, Wang said.
Making a global impact
Hangzhou's success is part of a broader trend, driven by China's deep-rooted focus on technology-driven rise.
From 5G to AI and smart robotics, from green renewable energy development to mass production of electric vehicles, and, from high-speed railways to aerospace exploration, China's ground-breaking technologies continue to set shiny benchmarks in the course of human innovation.
It is necessary to strengthen basic research and strive for more breakthroughs in key and core technologies, adopt forward-thinking arrangements for major technological projects, conduct large-scale demonstrations for the application of new technologies, products, and use scenarios, launch a national AI Plus initiative, nurture industries of the future, and boost China's strategic strength in science and technology, said China's agenda-setting Central Economic Work Conference held in December 2024 in Beijing.
Currently, there are more than 463,000 high-tech enterprises with valid certifications, and over 169,000 high-tech industrial enterprises above the designated size in China. Over 570 Chinese industrial companies have made it into the global top 2,500 research and development spenders, accounting for nearly a quarter of the total, China's Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Zhang Yunming, noted at a press conference.
Unitree Robotics has currently applied for some 180 patents at home and abroad, with more than 150 granted patents in hands, the company said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday.
In 2024, Unitree Robotics' quadruped robots captured about 60 percent of the global market share. "With ongoing technological advancements and decreasing production costs, we believe quadruped robots will soon become an essential part of everyday life, reaching many households in the world," the company's founder and CEO Wang Xingxing told the Global Times.
Since 2017, China has placed high-quality development high on agenda. In 2023, the country introduced the concept of developing new quality productive forces so that economic growth will be driven by innovations. Local governments in China have shifted from prioritizing economic scale to focusing on economic quality, Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for the Information and Communication Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the Global Times.
To meet the new goals, regions across China have ramped up investments in a flurry of high-tech sectors, creating an environment that supports and nurtures consistent technological advancement, Pan noted.
Increasingly, innovations have enabled China to gain a competitive edge on the global stage, which also helps propel the sale of high-tech Chinese products and services. At the same time, external restriction and pressure on China's high-tech sector have had the opposite effect - the more they impose limits, the stronger China's innovation grows, Pan said.
