entrepreneurs

Ma Ruipeng is 41 years old and has been working as a programmer for 20 years. Three months ago he left his job to start his own company. From his apartment in Beijing he works with three computers, AI tools like Claude Code, design platforms like Figma and, of course, his own installation of OpenClaw which he has called “Big House”. That’s what he hopes from his solo adventure: that his house becomes really big. He hasn’t made money yet, but he clearly prefers working with AI before AI works in place. The era of the Yo SL in China they start to push There are increasingly so-called “one-person companies” (OPC), one-person companies that act like startups founded and operated by a single person. These types of entrepreneurs make the most of AI tools—scheduling agents, video and image generators, task automation systems—to do the work that previously required having a team of employees. The falling cost of developing digital products, combined with the arrival of AI agents really functional like OpenClaw has made this type of business figures viable for the first time on a massive scale. The government is betting on entrepreneurs in the AI ​​era. In November the city of Suzhou advertisement that would build “30 OPC communities” with the goal that by 2028 the city would have at least 1,000 one-person AI companies. Other Chinese cities quickly followed. The Pudong district of Shanghai covers up to 300,000 yuan (37,500 euros) in computing costs, and Wuhan offers special loans for AI solopreneurs and even promises to absorb some of the losses if they go bankrupt. It is a well-known strategy: there is a central guideline that drives core competence to take advantage of this new industry that promises to revolutionize the market. Free floors and empty data centers. Chinese government incentives they don’t just translate into money. Several local governments are converting office buildings and underutilized data centers in a kind of incubators for this new SME format, for these “Yo SL”. The context is revealing, because with the AI ​​fever many municipalities built data centers without calculating real demand and had them half empty. Filling them with subsidized startups solves two problems at once. Silicon Valley is something else. On the other side of the Pacific, it is venture capital funds that finance Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, and there We bet on startups with the most return potential. In China, it is the State that is fully involved in this effort: it offers subsidies for infrastructure, it is a priority customer of these products —what’s happening with robotics— and promotes competition between municipalities to attract talent. “It’s like a giant Silicon Valley,” explained Lin Zhang, a researcher at the University of New Hampshire: “when a new technology emerges, the entire bureaucratic system is mobilized to develop it.” There will be many who fail. The uncertainty, however, is notable. Venture capitalists say that most OPCs will not end up becoming viable businesses, although they admit that government subsidies are encouraging more and more people to start pitching ideas for their startups. Taking into account that frequent layoffs are beginning to occur in the market, this is an alternative for many former employees of technology companies, who can thus seek their own opportunity with the help of the Chinese government. It is a commitment to volume as an innovation strategy: many will fail, but the more they try, the more options for success there will be. Fear of unemployment is a powerful ally. Behind many of these stories there is a common motivation: the fear of being left out of the labor market. The prospect of being replaced by AI both in China and the rest of the world is starting to get really disturbing for a whole generation of skilled workers. These OPCs are for many of them a response to that threat: if you can’t beat the AI, use it. Before, those who ended up laid off looked, for example, at franchised businesses and they set up a bar or a photoepilation business. The future indicates that many will now set up their “Yo SL”, their startup from home in which there will be no need for an office or employees. AI will take care of (almost) everything. Image | Blackcreek Corporate In Xataka | To dominate chips, China must first obtain hyper-specialized technology in the hands of its historical rival: Japan.