China’s New Playbook - Part 1: Technology

Why should Western companies, leaders and innovation teams keep a close eye on China? Well, because China is no longer just ‘the world’s factory’.

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Over the past week, we’ve immersed ourselves in the #ChinaMegaReport2025 of the fabulous Ashley Dudarenok 艾熙丽, a 600+ page tsunami of insights on technology, retail, consumer behavior, leadership and innovation.

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Are we exhausted? Yes. Are we fired up to share some key insights? Definitely! In the next coming weeks, we’ll gradually share our take-aways, starting today with 🥁#Technology

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1️⃣ Mobility

China truly dominates the EV market with a blistering 76% market share and is pioneering autonomous vehicles with players like BYD and XPENG. At the same time, eVTOL is giving real ‘Back to the Future 2’ vibes’ with groundbreaking innovations in urban air mobility.

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Cities like Guangzhou already building vertiports (for vertical take-offs) and flying taxis are entering pilot stages.

2️⃣ AI

While Europe is stuck in ethical and legal framework discussions, China is leading the pack in a unbothered fashion into AI.

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The country has 230 million Gen AI users and the AI industry is already valued at 74 billion euros. AI is imbedded in content creation, education, government services - powered by massive infrastructure investments in supercomputing and city-wide AI ecosystems.

3️⃣ Robotics

China is a global powerhouse in Robotics. Smart factories, medical robotics, companion robotics are just a few of the applications that are already real-life today.   

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What sets China apart is their fast anticipation to the aging population, rising labor costs and again a government-led focus on upgrading their manufacturing power by putting robotics at its core of innovation. Definitely visit Shenzhen and Suzhou if you want to see this in real-life.

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4️⃣ Quantum and Next-Gen Infrastructure

China is also racing ahead in quantum computing, 6G, and semiconductor self-reliance. From the world’s first 6G satellite to a 504-qubit chip, it’s laying the groundwork for the next technological paradigm. Think about this next time you are on on a beach in Italy with a crappy 4G connection.

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This tech explosion is not happening by accident. Behind it there is a radically different way of thinking about leadership, teams, and decision making.

In our next post, we will dive into how Chinese companies are reinventing leadership - and what the Western world can learn from ‘micro-entrepreneurs’, agile squads and why ‘control’ is not longer a leadership goal in China.

Or as we say in Chinese:

当风吹来时，有人筑墙，有人造风车。

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Let’s design a custom tour where you’ll connect directly with the experts driving change.

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