During the Web Summit in Doha, Dr. Gang Lu explores the factors driving China’s rapid tech industry growth in the past decade with Harry Man, Partner at Matrix Partners China, and Cindy Chow, Executive Director & CEO at Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Funding. Their thought-provoking discussion centered on “The Industries Driving China’s Growth”.  

This brief synopsis encapsulates the key insights and standout moments from their dialogue. The full video interview is readily accessible below. The conversation also delves into the trend of Chinese companies going overseas, the challenges for business models in China, and other tech-related questions. 

Panel Insights Summarize

Dr. Gang Lu: Can you share with us what you think of the past 10 to 15 years? What kind of key factor drove China’s tech industry so fast? 

Harry Man: First of all, people are getting richer to understand they have a lot of money that they can spend. Then, the internet penetration has been up to scale that everybody will get access to fast internet and the third thing is the creation and the penetration of smartphones. These three things create the golden 10 years that we’ve been experiencing from 2008 to 2018. China is very lucky to be in the market. We are rich enough. We have spare time. We can spend and then have the right engineers in the market to create all these apps that create the entire market booming.

Cindy Chow: We also see a similar trend. The takeoff is initially very slow but with the efforts from VC and also the efforts from the government inputting in a lot of money to kick start the ecosystem, we see the growth is gaining a lot of steam in the last few years. 

Dr. Gang Lu: If you look at the next 10 to 15 years, do you think there will be a lot of changes in China? 

Harry Man: I think one of the most important things is the economy is changing and growing and the needs for the government and the entrepreneurs at the same time for the users and users have been changing moving alone with the growth of the economy. I wouldn’t always say that geopolitical is putting a stop or a barrier sometimes it is encouraging and giving out new opportunities to entrepreneurs to start their businesses and to be a little bit more active. Now, the world has been changing. Chinese national strategy is mainly encouraging a lot of deep tech and AI because we want an ecosystem to be self-sufficient. 

Cindy Chow: The industries we see a shift and then geographically we also see a shift that used to be in Beijing, or Shanghai Yangtze River Region. But I’m pretty confident with the prospect of the Greater Bay Area which is close to Hong Kong. 

Dr. Gang Lu: We see more and more Chinese companies, especially tech companies, they are going out of China. Do you think that will be the new opportunities for investors?  

Harry Man: This could be the next wave of potential Chinese companies to go overseas. Nowadays, things have been changed. Many of these companies wanted to start fresh to be international from day one. There are a lot of deep tech companies going overseas as well. 

Cindy Chow: We have a term called sea turtle, Chinese some who study or live abroad and then return to China to start their own business. But right now we are seeing that sea turtle who used to have relocated back to China trying to go overseas. 

Dr. Gang Lu: We always see we invest in a Chinese company to help them to go overseas. But do you think that’s another trend we invest in overseas startups and then bring them to China? 

Cindy Chow: I guess that’s possible and perhaps the Greater Bay Area could be one of the opportunities. 

Dr. Gang Lu: Which particular sector of AI are you looking at and the most interested in right now? 
Harry Man: The business model of OpenAI does not work in China and enterprise services are tough. On the other hand, there is another angle that works in China which is using the fundamental foundation models to create use cases and applications in the Chinese market. 

Amidst the dynamic landscape of the Web Summit Qatar, Dr. Gang Lu engaged in a thought-provoking interview with Bill Deng, the Founder and CEO of XTransfer with the theme “AI at the helm: accelerate B2B growth in 2024”.  

In this summary, we encapsulate the key insights and highlights from their discussion. For those eager to delve deeper, watch the full video interview below to provide an immersive exploration into the future of AI-led business acceleration.

Panel Insights Summarize

Dr. Gang Lu: When we talk about cross-border B2B e-commerce, there should be lots of changes before the pandemic or after the pandemic. So can you show us what change you saw in the past? Tell us what’s changed right now. 

Bill Deng: In B2B, the trade tack is happening anywhere after the pandemic. The regulators are introducing technology platforms. So everybody is introducing the digital solution. But still, for B2B, it’s so scattered, that we don’t see a comprehensive digital platform that aggregates everything. Just like, everyone is talking about the platform the B2B version of Amazon will appear. But it is still missing right now. 

Dr. Gang Lu: On the payment side, what is the difference between B2B and B2C?

Bill Deng: B2C payment from all the platforms like Visa, master card, or Paypal, payment companies have been playing dominating roles in B2C payment but for B2B there are banks traditionally. Actually, like underground money services, they kind of became mainstream in some countries. So on top of banks, we don’t see payment companies or payment platforms playing a very important role, unlike B2C…So we create an AI-driven infrastructure to deal with all these AML challenges facing importers or exporters. 

By leveraging AI technology, we can not only help fight against the underground banking system, which enables banks to serve SMEs easily, but also offer streamlined processes and enhance compliance measures within our platform. It’s a triple-win situation.

Dr. Gang Lu: Talking about the adoption of AI. As you said, now XTransfer is using AI to help customers open the bank. How do you see extract for maybe the next five to ten years by AI technology? What’s the perfect solution for the customer?  

Bill Deng: We believe AI would change every corner of this business operation so we are monitoring the breaking point of AI. It could replace human beings, to replace manual work. We believe this could happen. So we are keeping sensitive about the change. We’re flexible and ready to introduce all these solutions that are ready to provide their value to our platform.  

Dr. Gang Lu: I’m sure now lots of customers come from China, you’re helping the Chinese to go overseas to sell products overseas. Do you have any plans to help global clients to sell stuff anywhere in the world? 

Bill Deng: XTransfer serves importers and exporters around the world and it makes the supply chain in global trade much easier. 

Dr. Gang Lu: How do you see as a founder to build an international company

Bill Deng: Regulation could be very complicated in cross-border trade. But we still believe this is the right strategy to go with. I think there are just two things to do: dare to do, dare to go globally. The second thing is we must adapt to cautiously implement everything. 

Dr. Gang Lu: How do you see the trends in the future like transporter e-commerce?

Bill Deng: E-commerce is happening in the B2C area but we believe that eventually it will be brought into B2B. All these technology-digitized solutions are so scattered but eventually, they will be linked together. 

Dr. Gang Lu: What’s your opinion of OpenAI for startups? Is it good to adopt OpenAI or deal with something on their own?  

Bill Deng: On the one hand, we are utilizing the large language model but we will not only use the OpenAI solution. On the other hand, we are trying our model. It’s a small language model that focuses on trade settlement-related topics.

Get ready for the annual insights from TechNode Content Team! The year 2023 can be considered a groundbreaking year in the technology field. As wrapping up this year, we gathered different insights from our content team. We’ll present nine Q&As, with timely updates every Wednesday and Friday in the following weeks!

Today, our Q&A comes from Zinan Zhang, Social Media Editor at TechNode. Zinan Mainly focuses on AI, E-commerce, and Social Media.

1. Which company has impressed you the most in 2023?

The company that has impressed me the most this year is Huawei. Whether it’s their innovations in the smartphone industry or their entry into the automotive market and the development of the HarmonyOS, every piece of news about Huawei has left me in awe of their progress. In the short six months since my return to China, I have truly experienced the powerful counterattack of Huawei. From technological innovations to a market comeback, Huawei has indeed demonstrated formidable industry influence.

2. Which company has surprised you the most in 2023?

The most unexpected company for me is Luckin Coffee. I didn’t anticipate Luckin Coffee and Moutai collaborating to create an alcoholic coffee, but the product became extremely popular upon its launch. The joint venture and marketing were highly successful. The online community also showed a strong reaction to the popularity of this Sauce latte, sparking several waves of discussions on social media platforms.

3. Which industry professional/entrepreneur/startup founder has left the most profound impression on you in 2023?

The entrepreneur who has left a deep impression on me is Elon Musk. Since he renamed Twitter to “X” in May, every time I log in and refresh Twitter, his tweets consistently make headlines on the front page. As a highly skilled marketer and visionary genius of the future, his tweets cover innovative technology and various humorous memes. They are a bit eccentric but incredibly interesting.

4. What is the most memorable overseas event for you in 2023?

The overseas event that left the deepest impression on me this year was the months-long Hollywood screenwriters’ strike. Although this strike initially appeared to be a large-scale movement within the entertainment industry, its core issues were closely related to AI. Aside from the impact brought by streaming platforms, AI, especially AIGC, significantly affected the rights of most screenwriters. During my visit to the United States in May, I witnessed the immense scale of this strike firsthand. It made me acutely aware of the profound influence that AI has on creative industry professionals. In the wave of technological advancement, finding a balance between technological progress and the rights of creators may become a crucial issue for many creative industries and related professionals.

5. If you were to recommend one significant industry trend for everyone to follow, what would it be?

The significant industry trend that I would like to highlight is the revival of Aito. It’s truly not easy; it involves both strength and luck.

6. What industry buzzword have you encountered the most in 2023?

From a media perspective, the industry buzzword I encountered the most this year is AIGC. In 2023, AI-related news constantly emerged and became a widely discussed topic on social networks. For workers in social media, every day of my work involves encountering and using AI.

7. Which phrase or sentence best summarizes your perspective on the field you’ve been following in 2023?

For 2023, one could summarize the technology industry as reaching a white-hot stage. As a social media operator, we pay attention to various fields within the technology industry every day. This year, every sector of the technology industry has been exceptionally active, witnessing many groundbreaking advancements, as well as some notable dramatic events and eye-catching innovations.

8. What product/company/technology/industry are you most looking forward to next year?

Next year, what I am most looking forward to is the smart home industry. I have great expectations for how technology can be cleverly integrated into people’s daily lives. With the increasing prevalence of smart technology, I also hope to experience more convenient and efficient smart home products.

9. Do you believe AI has the potential to threaten humanity?

I believe technology is neutral, and the key lies in the humans who use it. AI needs to be appropriately regulated and supervised to achieve peaceful coexistence with humans.

Note: The article was first published on TechNode China written by Evan Huang and translated by Zinan Zhang and Jake Newby.

On Dec. 5, 2023, Pete Lau, the founder of OnePlus (now Senior Vice President at Oppo), held a press conference to mark the Chinese mobile phone brand’s tenth anniversary where he answered a series of screened questions from netizens, posted on the social media platform Weibo. These questions led Lau to offer a retrospective on OnePlus’s entrepreneurial history, discuss its brand positioning, and evaluate some of its classic products from the last decade. 

OnePlus was founded on Dec. 17, 2013, and released its first product, the OnePlus One, in Beijing five months later. Time magazine later praised the phone as a “Phone of Dreams” in an article that made OnePlus the first Chinese smartphone brand to be reviewed by the outlet. Yet in recent years the brand has struggled to differentiate itself from Oppo, with whom it shares a large amount of investment, leading to several restructurings in the relationship between the two firms.

Understandably, the tenth anniversary milestone found Lau in a reflective mood, but he also laid out some of his ambitions for the brand’s future and repeatedly emphasized that OnePlus’ has its place in a crowded mobile phone market.

Material innovation

One area in which Lau feels the brand has excelled – and differentiated itself – in the last ten years is in the materials it has used.

As early as 2014, with the OnePlus One, OnePlus introduced two innovative materials: “baby skin” and bamboo. The baby skin white variant, featured a three-layer evenly brushed back cover, with a delicate and smooth texture due to its spray-on material extracted from natural cashew nuts that didn’t retain sweat stains. The bamboo version, using the grass as its back cover material, provided a warm and smooth feel.

With the OnePlus 3 series protective cases, OnePlus introduced another new material: ebony wood. This is a scarce wood with a tight structure, hardness, and corrosion resistance, showcasing distinct wood grains.

With the OnePlus 5T, OnePlus once again challenged traditional material usage and craftsmanship modes, using a new spray-on material and process on the white back cover. Through four new high-precision spray processes, sandstone white and metal materials were organically fused to provide outstanding tactility.

AG glass, widely used in current phones, gained its popularity from OnePlus. On the OnePlus 6T, AG etching was used to create AG glass, providing an impressive matte feel. Today, OnePlus has adopted the fifth-generation AG glass technology, achieving a haze of the glass surface to 72%, and delivering a matte texture resistant to fingerprints and sweat stains.

OnePlus’ pursuit of material innovation extends beyond this. In the spring of this year, OnePlus launched the OnePlus 11 Jupiter Rock Limited Edition, using 3D microcrystalline rock, a material that has never been used before in the industry.

OS issues: From independence to adoption

OnePlus phones were originally equipped with an in-house developed operating system, HydrogenOS. HydrogenOS was known for its simplicity. The “smoothness” of HydrogenOS was highly praised by many early users and was considered a competitive advantage for OnePlus.

As other domestic smartphone systems became more localized, however, HydrogenOS, which leant more towards Android systems, began to see that competitive advantage significantly reduced. 

ColorOS, developed by Oppo, is a more comprehensive operating system compared to HydrogenOS, offering rich and stable functionality. Therefore, with the OnePlus 9 series in 2021, OnePlus directly adopted ColorOS, aiming to gradually replace its HydrogenOS with a higher caliber system. On Nov. 13, Oppo announced that ColorOS’s global monthly active users exceeded 600 million. 

The recently released OnePlus 12 comes equipped with ColorOS 14, debuting the all-new AndesGPT model and integrating deeply with the PANTANAL system to break down barriers between data and services.

OnePlus and Oppo integration

Due to Pete Lau’s connections with Oppo, OnePlus has always had a close relationship with the mobile phone giant. In 2021, OnePlus and Oppo fully integrated, with the former becoming an independent sub-brand under Oppo. 

Lau has always been keen to emphasize that OnePlus and Oppo are two completely independent companies, with overlapping relationships only in terms of investment. However, OnePlus has benefited from the support and resources provided by Oppo in areas such as product development, technology, supply chain, and channels. To seize new opportunities and promote the healthy and long-term growth of OnePlus, collaboration with Oppo is needed to enhance the former company’s brand strength, while also bringing positive synergies to both sides, Lau said.

In recent years, OnePlus has opened up a new Ace series product line, as part of an attempt to differentiate its brand from Oppo. The Ace series is intended to enable more people to gain access to what Lau terms “premium flagship” products but with lower price points. 

After the release of the Ace series, OnePlus achieved a year-on-year growth of 9.6% in total domestic sales in the third quarter of last year, with a month-on-month growth of 44.3%. In the first half of 2023, OnePlus’ smartphone sales increased by 335% year-on-year, making it the fastest-growing mobile phone brand in the industry during the same period. Therefore, Lau jokingly remarked that competitors should be grateful that OnePlus has yet to venture into products priced below RMB 2,000.

Thinking globally

At the OnePlus tenth anniversary event, Lau repeatedly emphasized the mantra of “making good products”. Yet he also stressed that for OnePlus, this philosophy doesn’t mean that they excessively emphasize the differences between countries. Whether in design style or product experience, there is no deliberate effort to create different products based on regional distinctions. He believes that “internationalization is a false proposition.” Truly good products are universal and have no borders, he said – as long as the product is good enough, it will be accepted by users both domestically and internationally.

Looking back over the past decade, Lau admitted that OnePlus has many dreams yet to be realized. In the future, Lau said, the company will continue to persist in making good products, continually pursue higher performance, and bring users more quality products and experiences.

TechNode, as the first independent English-language media focusing on China’s technology and innovation, has become an important window into China’s technology in the international technology arena over the past decade. TechNode’s reader base has expanded to 150 countries worldwide, and its independent and fair reporting is quoted by many international media including Fortune, The Economist, etc. Through media, events, and other channels, it has brought many Chinese technology companies and innovations into the global view.

Over the past 15 years, the world and China’s technology sector have greatly changed. Chinese technology sector has made a complete change from the copy to China model, to the unique innovation model and the rapid development of technological capabilities in certain areas. From BAT being in the spotlight to the global blossoming of big Chinese companies, tech unicorns, and startups, more and more Chinese innovations urgently needed to be recognized and acknowledged by the world.

Therefore, TechNode will launch “NextChina”, a series of interviews focusing on the latest industry tracks and the most promising innovative companies, with its resources in English and Chinese as well as its global media partners, aiming to promote more outstanding Chinese companies to the international stage.

The first series: Rise of Robotics

Exploring one of today’s trending subjects, robotics takes the forefront in our coverage. Currently, robotic technology is gaining prominence across various sectors, including industry, healthcare, services, households, etc. Beyond being the future of technology, robotics has seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Our focus will be on showcasing the stories and innovative spirit of the most promising companies in China’s robotics sector.

Stay tuned in early January for ‘NextChina’ to explore the tech insights in China! If your company is interested in being part of this series interview, or if you have a recommendation for a company, don’t hesitate to contact us at zinan.zhang@technode.com

Don’t miss this valuable opportunity to show your company’s power in the world!