Anthony Lawrance of Greater Bay Insights explains the basics of the Greater Bay Area’s Innovation Corridor
Shenzhen is often called China’s Palo Alto, the city at the heart of Silicon Valley, a reflection of the way in which the Greater Bay Area is often called China’s Silicon Valley. Yet what many observers do not realize is that there is, in fact, a blueprint for China’s Silicon Valley within the overall masterplan of the Greater Bay Area. It is known by a name that only a bureaucrat could have come up with: the Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Corridor (or STIC).
The three cities at the heart of southern China’s tech industry Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen need little introduction, even if the plan that links together their hi-tech capabilities does.
The STIC is a 180 km belt of districts and hi-tech parks that runs down the eastern side of the Bay. It begins at the Guangzhou-Foshan border, passes through central Guangzhou, winds its way down to Nansha, cuts across to Dongguan’s Songshan Lake, and then heads south again to end in Shenzhen, a city literally made up of hi-tech zones.
The innovation corridor is connected by transport arteries: the Guangzhou-Shenzhen Expressway, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen coastal highway, the Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen Intercity Rail and the Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway. These are expanding and developing at a rapid pace.
Initiated in 2017, the masterplan for this “innovation corridor” is modelled not only upon Silicon Valley, but also on the Boston-Cambridge-New York tech hub on the US east coast, as well as Japan’s Tokyo-Yokohama-Kobe-Tsukuba tech hub. These innovation and economic centres are built on clusters of industries that are concentrated together with universities, research institutions, and a keenly interested pack of venture capitalists.
As shown in this table, the Greater Bay’s innovation plan has some major ambitions for the coming decade:
Source: thePaper.cn
Already, there’s no shortage of superstar companies already in the STIC. Tencent, Netease, Huawei, ZTE, DJI, OPPO, Vivo – the list goes on. The corridor has a combined annual industrial output of over RMB 1 trillion.
As with many, if not all, Chinese masterplans, numbers are a key component of the overall blueprint. This one is based on a geographic layout referred to in official documents as “One Corridor, Ten Cores and Multiple Nodes.” Let’s break them down.
Taking inspiration from the US west coast’s Highway 101, which runs through the states of California, Oregon and Washington, and the US east coast’s Route 128, the “One Corridor” refers to the 180-kilometer belt running through Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen. It is similar in size to Silicon Valley.
These are “innovation clusters” along the Corridor, with four in both Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and two in Dongguan. They are:
These refer to no fewer than 37 industrial parks scattered along the Corridor.
Compared to well-established tech hubs in the US or Japan, the Greater Bay’s STIC still needs to overcome some challenges. Some are fairly obvious and just require time and organic economic growth. Others are more specific to the region and are being addressed by policymakers as a matter of urgency. They include:
Infrastructure is the challenge being addressed with the most gusto. According to the masterplan, the Corridor will “construct a comprehensive transportation network”. Airports are being upgraded and new ones are being built. Hi-speed railways are being laid out at record speeds. Roads are being widened and networks improved.
The goal is for everyone within the Greater Bay’s STIC to be “10 minutes to the highway, 45 minutes to each city’s central business district and 60 minutes to the airports at Guangzhou or Shenzhen.” Will this infrastructure boom accelerate the STIC to the point it can seriously challenge the world’s leading tech hubs for pre-eminence? And will the STIC become a magnet for talent and a breeding ground for world-leading innovation? That’s definitely the plan.
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