An aerial drone photo taken on Nov 25, 2023 shows a night view of the Zhujiang New Town in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong province. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has 220 billionaires, according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2024, a ranking of the US-dollar billionaires in the world, and eight of the GBA’s billionaires made it into the top 20 in China.

The report, released by Hurun Report on Monday, lists 3,279 billionaires, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk ranked the wealthiest. China is still the world capital for billionaires, with 814, closely followed by the US with 800.

In China, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are the top three cities for billionaires. Zhong Shanshan, founder of bottled water company Nongfu Spring, retained his position as China's richest person with $63 billion. 

In the Greater Bay Area, 220 billionaires made the global list, and eight of them — living in Hong Kong, Foshan and Guangzhou — were in the national top 20.

Hong Kong, with 65 billionaires, was seventh in the ranking of cities with the most billionaires globally, and fourth on the national list. 

Pony Ma, chairman and CEO of technology giant Tencent, is the richest person living in the Greater Bay Area. Other notable billionaires in the area include newcomer Chow Shing-yuk, founder and chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based logistics and delivery platform Lalatech; and China's youngest self-made billionaire, Nie Yunchen, who opened the first Heytea shop more than a decade ago in Jiangmen, Guangdong province, and has expanded the chain to over 900 stores nationwide.

In terms of industries, artificial intelligence has been the major driver for global wealth growth, generating over half of all the wealth this year, said Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher.

Hoogewerf also found that wealth creation in China has gone through “deep changes” in recent years. For instance, the wealth of billionaires in the real estate and renewables industries has decreased, while financial services saw a strong resurgence.

Contact the writer at grace@chinadailyhk.com