In Shanghai, where, due to its architecture and bright lights, the visitor hardly notices that the sunset is coming, cash is no longer used. Not even credit and debit cards – payments are made via a QR code. If someone is looking for a particular product, a photo is taken and the Chinese e-commerce site will offer it to the second one in all its variants and also with a price comparison.
In this city of almost 24 million inhabitants, drinking coffee has become fashionable. What seems like a small change has become a trend that has spread to other large Chinese cities – where tea has been drunk throughout life – which has made China the world’s leading consumer of that drink and led to the emergence of the most varied and ultra-technological models of coffee makers.
These days, in the global innovation forum taking place in Beijing, artificial intelligence developments are attracting attention, while the 100 unicorns (innovative companies valued at 1,000 million dollars) that exist in the country appear in the foreground. This number exceeds those of all of Latin America..
This is what has even led to the creation of a special stock market so that these companies can be capitalized, as is the case with the Nasdaq which houses the technology companies in the United States. Here they call it Star Marquet or the market of the stars which already operates in Shanghai.
But the biggest indication is what’s happening with its space industry. They have already reached the dark side of the moon. And, this morning, many people followed from work the new adventure with the first three civilian astronauts who boarded the Shenzou XVI which transports them to the Tiangong space station; They will do spacewalks. They have set a goal of landing on the moon in 2030 to pursue the transfer of this cutting-edge technology to other strategic sectors.
Behind this move is the policy promoted by the government with the motto of moving from made in China to made in China. This is the case with semiconductors and they are advancing rapidly in artificial intelligence.
Many foreign companies, from the textile company Inditex, owner of Zara, to Volkswagen, are setting up their research and development centers in China. In case of Volkswagen explains why 40% of cars sold in the Asian giant are European. In turn, companies like Huawei have set up their innovation hub in Ireland, to learn from European cooperation. Some understand that the fight with the United Stateswhich is a dispute in the tech race, it made them put a greater emphasis on that path. It’s curious because the Chinese character representing the United States designates it as a beautiful country. They’re also making unexpected alliances like the one they just forged with Japan for semiconductors and cutting-edge industrial equipment.
For example, what happens on social networks attracts attention. The battle with Google has led Beijing to replace them with others. Whatsapp, from Meta, has been changed to WeChat, with similar applications. The Chinese answer to Instagram is called Xiaohongshu. Facebook-like site is Weibo and Douyin is Tik Tok’s version. What was already assimilated for them becomes a nightmare for travellers: Internet connection via other operating systems.
With a per capita income of 12,000 dollars a year but in Shanghai it reaches 20,000 dollars, one of the most suggestive cities in the worldit has many tech professionals in its streets. And the problem for this sector that China wants to create is, as in Argentina, the lack of talentdespite the fact that its universities receive nearly a million engineers a year.
NS
Source: Clarin
