By Li Zheng, People’s Daily
As the first quarter of 2025 unfolds, China’s innovation landscape reveals compelling patterns through three distinct regional narratives. The eastern tech stronghold of Hangzhou continues its ascendancy, while central China’s Henan province emerges as an unexpected cradle of commercial innovation, and western regions demonstrate growing cultural influence through cinematic achievements.
Hangzhou’s tech corridor now hosts Game Science, the visionary studio behind the global gaming phenomenon Black Myth: Wukong, alongside robotics pioneer Unitree whose Spring Festival Gala performance became a national talking point. This eastern metropolis solidifies its position as China’s answer to Silicon Valley, nurturing enterprises that blend technological prowess with cultural resonance.
Henan’s commercial sector has undergone a significant evolution, exemplified by Pangdonglai. Once a regional player, the Xuchang-based retail complex attracted millions of visitors during this year’s Spring Festival, achieving daily revenues exceeding 100 million yuan across the eight-day holiday—a figure that parallels the earnings of Henan’s major cultural landmarks during peak seasons. This retail revolution accompanies the national expansion of homegrown brands like Mixue Bingcheng and Guoquan Shihui, challenging conventional wisdom about innovation geography.
Ne Zha 2, the animated sequel from China, has shattered global box office benchmarks, securing its place as the first Asian cinematic work to rank among the world’s top ten highest-grossing films. This historic achievement underscores the robust animation ecosystem and profound cultural legacy of Chengdu, Sichuan province—the film’s production hub. Once a regional cultural cornerstone, Chengdu is rapidly emerging as a pivotal player in the global creative economy, driven by its fusion of technological innovation and heritage-inspired storytelling.
These regional trajectories collectively sketch an evolving national innovation map where eastern tech dominance now faces vibrant challenges from central commercial innovators and western cultural producers. The emerging paradigm suggests China’s next developmental phase may be characterized not by singular hubs, but by a networked ecosystem of specialized regional competencies driving multidimensional growth.
So, what’s fueling this wave of breakthroughs?
Some point to the power of curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit. Neither Feng Ji, the mastermind behind Black Myth: Wukong, nor Jiaozi, the director of Ne Zha 2, had formal training in their respective fields. Yet, driven by passion and curiosity, they broke boundaries, crossed disciplines, and remained deeply committed to their craft.
Equally critical is the symbiosis between state policy and private enterprise. In tech hubs like Hangzhou, municipal officials routinely collaborate with investment executives during on-site consultations, fast-tracking resource allocation and regulatory support for fledgling firms.
Long-term vision and an open, inclusive innovation environment have also played a key role. Hangzhou, for example, allows government-guided funds to sustain loss ratios of up to 30%, deploying tolerant capital reserves to catalyse private-sector participation. This long-horizon approach fosters ecosystems where experimental ideas mature unimpeded.
Viewed holistically, these developments signal not serendipity but structural maturation. Parallel strides in industrial infrastructure, cutting-edge R&D, human capital, and market sophistication have collectively elevated the nation’s innovative capacity. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle: China’s innovation “water table” rises, drawing global enterprises to its fertile ground.
China boasts the world’s largest talent pool. Annually, over 5 million STEM graduates enter its workforce — forging a strategic reservoir for disruptive innovation.
The nation’s vertically integrated consumer ecosystem compounds this advantage. A seamless domestic market—spanning 1.4 billion consumers—enables frictionless scaling of viable innovations. As arbitrary market distortions dissolve, commercialized R&D achieves exponential scalability, leveraging China’s unique capacity to convert technical prototypes into mass-market phenomena overnight.
Critically, next-generation infrastructure acts as force multiplier. With 1.1 billion digitally native citizens and 5G coverage density surpassing 60%, China’s symbiosis between digital and industrial domains creates a global testbed for AI-driven enterprises. Here, algorithmic innovation converges with manufacturing heft—a petri dish where industrial metaverses and autonomous supply chains transition from speculative theory to operational reality.
Meanwhile, China’s institutional framework continues to mature. The socialist market economy has become more efficient, fostering a culture that values innovation and tolerates trial and error. The country not only leverages the advantages of centralized coordination but also embraces the flexibility and diversity of market-driven experimentation.
With talent to drive innovation, markets to reward it, application scenarios to support it, and institutional advantages to safeguard it, China has created an ecosystem where innovation flourishes.
Innovation here operates as a synergistic interplay—skilled human capital ignites ideation, consumer markets validate scalability, real-world applications pressure-test viability, and institutional framework mitigates systemic friction. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle of ideation, commercialisation, and iterative refinement.
Looking ahead, the vast potential of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies will inspire more pioneers to explore uncharted territories. The wealth creation effect of China’s massive market will encourage bold new ideas. And in the years to come, even more groundbreaking innovations and compelling stories from China will captivate the world.
Consumers line up before a Pangdonglai supermarket in Xuchang, central China’s Henan province, Dec. 8, 2024. (Photo by Wang Zirui/People’s Daily Online)
A girl shakes hands with a humanoid robot at the Nanjing International Expo Center in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province, Feb. 15, 2025. (Photo by Li Wenbao/People’s Daily Online)
Citizen take photos of a set of toys themed with the movie Ne Zha 2 at the flagship store of Pop Mart in Shanghai. (Photo by Wang Chu/People’s Daily Online)
