Exploring the UK’s tech opportunity in China

Integrated tech hubs

Still in its nascent stages, the area has already attracted Alibaba and will come to house more than 1,200 high-tech companies as part of a fully integrated hub. The park has been specifically designed to attract foreign enterprise, sporting a liberalised business licensing policy, an English-speaking hospital, school and array of affordable housing.

This integrated approach forms part of efforts to modernise the offering and ensure that infrastructure keeps pace with the technology itself. And if that wasn’t of enough significance, the Chaoyang is just one of 16 Z-Parks across Beijing that boast such credentials.

Upon visiting these burgeoning hubs, the obvious question was: to what end? The core message from China’s domestic tech leaders was one of internationalisation and global ambition – China is open for business with Britain and the rest of the world.

Looking at the UK specifically, there are areas of the tech sector that present sizeable opportunities. I heard first-hand of the relationship between the startups and scaleups in China and the direction of merger and acquisition activity in tech. The biggest players, including Tencent and Alibaba, have been accelerating their strategic acquisitions to bring forward their capabilities in both fintech and AI.

With their academic prowess, current pace of progress and comparable consumer appetite for front-end innovation, there is opportunity alone in understanding how the size and cash liquidity of these tech titans can sponsor post-Brexit growth for UK tech companies. 

China challenges

But there are challenges to doing business in China. Representatives of the UK government, along with tech entrepreneurs, spoke about the need to commit resources to coming and understanding the market, the culture and the legislation to lay the groundwork for successful commerce. The resounding sentiment from the major stakeholders, however, was that a rising tide lifts all ships and that if the UK is willing and enthusiastic about weighing anchor, then increased collaboration levels will come to benefit everyone.

There is clearly far greater government involvement within China’s tech ecosystem – which has enabled infrastructure investments that are seen nowhere else in the world. There continue to be concerns over intellectual property and data security, and without doubt there is scope for China to step up here and play a fairer game.

There are also issues relating to the distribution of the colossal investment that, without the direction of the market, many fear has been deployed into areas that are not going to provide the desired commercial results.

The US approach to managing China’s rise is having undesired consequences for them both and the global economy – and the UK has the opportunity to capitalise on the increasing number of Chinese investors looking to London as its new base in the West. As I have experienced first-hand, the Chinese tech ecosystem offers significant commercial potential for the UK and we can be the perfect global partner for Chinese investors and entrepreneurs looking to the rest of the world for future growth.