The Chinese city of Shenzhen is still one technological centers most prominent in the country. There they have their headquarters giants such as Huawei, Tencent or DJI. However, with the Boom of AI there is another city that is concentrating some of the most innovative companies of the moment and already stands like the new Chinese Valley Silicon. Welcome to Hangzhou.
Alibaba. Jack Ma chose his hometown as the headquarters of the one who would become the Chinese giant of electronic commerce. Without knowing it, he put the seed of what Hangzhou is now. Alibaba attracted investors and encouraged the creation of a culture tech local; even former employees have formed other companies In the city. Alibaba Cloud Technology has also been key in the development of many AI startups. With Eight data centers In the region, Alibaba has made Hangzhou fertile land for the birth of numerous startups IA.
The ‘Six Little Dragons’. This is how the group formed by the six most leading companies of the moment in China is nicknamed, all of them based in Hangzhou:
University of Zhejiang. They call her the “Stanford of the East,”. Stanford University in California formed many of Silicon Valley’s outstanding figures and Zhejiang University is doing the same with the leaders of these companies. Deepseek, Manycore and Deep Robotics were covers by students of this university. According to SCMPuntil September 2024 the university had produced 102 Chinese startup executives.
Government support. The city is home to numerous investment funds dedicated to incubating new technology companies and have very favorable policies that do not exist in other Chinese cities. They count on this SCMP video That students who want to form a company can get a loan of up to 500,000 Yuan (about 60,000 euros). If the company fails, the government covers up to 100,000 yuan and if it is more, up to 80% of the total loan.
An example is that of Game Science, to whom the government paid the rental of the offices during the first three years and also helped them get the license to launch the game. Also the case of Brainco, a startup that as we said was based in Boston, but thanks to the incentives offered by the Chinese government, they managed to move to Hangzhou.
Administrative efficiency. Another of the points where Hangzhou has stood out on other cities is its bureaucratic efficiency. Here was born Initiative called “A visit at most.” It means that if you have to do paperwork to set up a company or request some help, you just need to visit the administration once. It has worked so well that they are taking it to more cities.
Return. The efforts to make Hangzhou a technological hub of reference are paying fruits. Official data indicates that Hangzhou’s technology industry It grew by 7.1% in 2024 and produced 630,000 million yuan (approximately 75,000 million euros), which is a third of the gross domestic product of the city.
Image | Wikipedia
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings