Why Zhuhai is a hotbed of high-tech companies

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Editor’s note: Dr Tian Feng is the founder and CEO of Phomera Metamaterials Inc. based in south China's Guangdong Province. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Ten years ago, I moved to the UK to do my PhD at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. At the time, China was still growing very fast and enjoying the benefits of the relatively low labor cost and huge original equipment manufacturer (OEM) orders from all over the world.

Ten years later, with the shift of global manufacturing toward Southeast Asia and other countries, China proposed its "Made in China 2025" plan, indicating that science and technology are of key importance for the Chinese industrial transformation and progress.

It is in this context that more foreign talents started to come back to contribute to the new round of manufacturing upgrades. Recently, the world, and especially the United States under President Donald Trump, started to change their impression of China, from a low-end manufacturing center to a technically strong country focused on high-end intelligent manufacturing.

A close-up of human hands using virtual panel. /VCG Photo

So I decided to come back and start my career in China. This was not a hard decision, for China has become increasingly attractive to scientists and industrial experts in top overseas institutions looking to establish start-ups for a number of reasons.

Firstly, China has the largest market in the world and it is still growing relatively fast.

Secondly, China has a tremendous number of engineers and local talents as well as know-how in many industries, which can speed up the scaling-up process of material production.

Furthermore, both the central and local governments are aggressively trying to attract talents who can lead specific industries by making attractive policies accordingly.

Moreover, the Chinese venture capital market is maturing and becoming more professional and eager to find new technology-driven unicorn enterprises.

My partners and I started a high-tech company, Phomera, focusing on flexible structural-color metamaterials based in Zhuhai, one of the earliest Special Economic Zones in China. It is the only city that connects with both Hong Kong and Macao and it is one of the core cities in the Guangdong-HongKong-Macao Bay Area.

Zhuhai arguably has the best air quality in China as well. The local government has provided great financial support and individual care to ensure that entrepreneurs and teams are able to focus on technical and commercial issues during the development of the company.

A view of Zhuhai City. /VCG Photo‍

To minimize costs, startups can apply for rent deduction, free accommodation, angel capital, as well as fiscal support for both the talent and the project. The local government has also guided the startups to get involved in entrepreneurial competitions, media coverage, business exhibitions, to speed up their growth.

We have spent the last three years laying down a solid foundation to commercialize a cutting-edge technology we developed in Cambridge. By fusing our scientific understanding of the technology with industrial know-how in raw materials, manufacturing equipment, and production aspects, we occupy a unique space with high technological barriers to compete in the flexible metamaterial industry.

Today, continuous R&D with our scientific partners at Cambridge and Harvard has allowed us to develop novel types of materials in fiber and powder formats besides the films that are commercially available. We are confident that we will be the leading supplier in the industry and eventually enter the capital market in the foreseeable future.

More importantly, our confidence does not only come from our own work, but also from our government’s determination of making Zhuhai and the Greater Bay Area the forefront of China’s next big advancement.

More favorable, comprehensive incentives are being put forward, such as the latest Talent Incentive Plan in Zhuhai, to make it more appealing to investors and many industries. Combining the effort of a Free Trade Zone and a High-Tech Zone, we have little doubt that Zhuhai will become a "promised land" for many high-tech companies, like ourselves, to thrive.

(Tao Chengchao with the Investment Promotion Center of Zhuhai Hi-Tech Zone also contributed to this article.)