China’s answer to Silicon Valley
It’s no secret that China has been upping its game on the tech front as part of a clear strategy to challenge Silicon Valley’s global dominance.
Indeed, China’s Shenzhen, once known as the “factory of the world”, is becoming known as China’s own Silicon Valley. Already it is home to some of China's most recognisable technology names, including Huawei, Tencent and Dronemaker DJI, along with big international names such as Apple which is building an R&D centre there. Meanwhile, about a thousand start-up accelerators are active in Shenzhen, drawn by its proximity to factories capable of churning out all manner of gadgets and by its well-established supply chains.
But Pony Ma Huateng, the self-styled billionaire and founder of Tencent, believes China’s Silicon Valley would be greatly enhanced if Shenzhen teamed up with Hong Kong and Macau. In June, he called for a new level of collaboration between Hong Kong and Macau (both of them special administrative regions) and the Greater Bay Area of Guangdong. He argued that bringing together these destinations would create a “mecca of talent.” Given that the shortage of talent is the top concern of tech companies around the world, bringing together these regions would give a huge boost to all three.
Many of Tencent’s staff now commute daily between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, which means a lot of time is wasted at border checkpoints. Ma wants the regional governments to join forces to remove the barriers to movement both of people and capital, thereby helping attract the best global talent in high-tech industries.
Shenzhen’s mayor, Xu Qin, is confident that his city will become a global innovation centre, as the city is already well on the way to making the transition from manufacturing to technology R&D. Moreover, its manufacturing background provides an enormous advantage. In the interests of efficiency, many companies adopted an open source system, sharing technology, creativity and innovation, and this has helped Shenzhen become a global leader in areas such as virtual technology.
Shenzhen’s ecosystem is therefore developing very differently to that of Silicon Valley in California, where there is a very tightly controlled approach to the development and application of technology.
Given the Thai government’s mission to build a “Creative + Innovative Smart Thailand” through Thailand 4.0, let’s hope that one day we will have our own Silicon Valley.
