For years, Shenzhen has been synonymous with Chinese innovation.
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The southern megacity – and the firms it has spawned over the decades – have become the indisputable champions of the country’s drive for technological self-reliance, as well as its struggle against containment efforts led by the US.
But as the tech race expands from chips, drones and telecommunications to more nascent products like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, the sudden rise of a new cohort of start-ups has thrust their home base, Hangzhou, onto the scene.
As the eastern upstart appears poised to steal Shenzhen’s thunder, fuelling talk of fierce domestic competition, others are calling for the cities to pool their resources and collaborate to help China overcome the bottlenecks being imposed from outside – and eventually, take pole position in the race to the cutting edge.
“China needs a cluster of hubs to outcompete the US, given its sheer size and talent reservoir. Hangzhou is proof of China’s growing innovation [capacity], and more may continue to emerge,” said Guo Wanda, vice-president of the China Development Institute, a government-affiliated think tank based in Shenzhen.
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Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, was not a quiet hamlet in China’s tech world before this year; it has housed the headquarters of Alibaba, the e-commerce giant and owner of the South China Morning Post, since the company’s founding in 1999.