The global innovation landscape is shifting in clear flight to quality. Farewell, funding frenzies; hello, scale and resilience. In Asia, capital is concentrating on fewer, larger bets as recent CB Insights research shows total funding rose 157 percent year-on-year, while deal count fell 22 percent in 2025. For Hong Kong, the question is simple in this current trend: Can it move from counting startups to creating globally scaled tech leaders?

The recent joint study by CB Insights and HKSTP, “Inside Asia’s Fast Track to Global Innovation Scale”, highlights a clear recalibration as investors demand global scale-ready ventures, not just promising prototypes. This is no simple matter when the challenge for startups is amped up by tighter capital, geopolitical friction, and diverging regulatory systems.

Data suggest that Hong Kong’s ecosystem is maturing and up to the global scale task. The city’s largest innovation ecosystem, Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP), has nurtured 14 unicorns, highlighting the strength of scale-up capabilities within HKSTP and the city itself.

Data backs up Hong Kong’s growing unicorn-conducive ecosystem. CB Insights ranks Hong Kong fifth globally and top in Asia on its Mosaic index — a score that investors point to as a measure for unicorn potential. The index measures private tech companies for overall startup growth momentum, capital access, and management talent. Hong Kong SAR’s 370 Mosaic score beats Singapore and India, signifying a higher concentration of high-potential scale-ups and unicorns.

Realizing the innovation powerhouse vision

Hong Kong’s latest annual policy moves are adding further fuel to the innovation fire that is burning bright in the city. Hong Kong’s first-ever five-year plan features the “Three Major I&T Parks and Five Key R&D Institutions” strategy that will propel the next generation of unicorns. This will unite HKSTP, Cyberport and the Hetao Co-operation Zone into a unified growth engine that fully integrates the Hong Kong and Shenzhen innovation ecosystems by 2030, strengthening scale-up pathways in the emerging Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area innovation powerhouse.

Hong Kong’s appeal to global innovators grows via its position as the interconnection between the Chinese mainland and global markets. The city sits within the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou cluster, ranked first among the world’s innovation clusters for the second consecutive time, according to WIPO’s Global Innovation Index.

Complementing this cross-border scale dynamic is the planned HKSTP-located Innovation and Technology Application Scenario Promotion Centre, which will connect ideas emerging from this diverse ecosystem with real-world testing and adoption. Often highlighted as a critical challenge in Hong Kong, this will plug the commercialization gap and accelerate the journey from research to global-scale enterprises.

Shenzhen offers engineering depth, rapid prototyping and advanced manufacturing. China as a whole is increasingly extending beyond manufacturing into frontier technology development across robotics, artificial intelligence, semiconductors and biotechnology. For unicorns in these sectors, proximity provides access, while Hong Kong contributes international capital, commercial networks and institutional frameworks familiar to global investors.

Taking frontier tech global

Cornerstone Robotics exemplifies Hong Kong’s outward flow model: incubated locally, scaled through HKSTP’s frameworks. By utilizing Hong Kong’s international testing standards, its Sentire surgical robotics system secured China’s NMPA approval, European CE Mark certification, and Singapore Health Sciences Authority clearance. Its $200 million financing and multinational approvals show how an emphasis on patient capital, policy alignment and trusted standards can convert research into global products.

Momentum is accelerating as the HKSTP ecosystem welcomed its 14th unicorn, Silicon Valley-based ScaleFlux, a leader in computational storage and artificial-intelligence data infrastructure. ScaleFlux’s decision to establish a presence in Hong Kong is a resounding vote of confidence in the city’s deep-tech capabilities. Collaborations with universities in Hong Kong on research-and-development and talent development, prove how global pioneers increasingly see the city as an essential base for driving next-generation AI workloads across international markets.

Hong Kong’s superconnector role has never mattered more as Asia emerges as a true alternative to Silicon Valley. CB Insights’ latest report concludes that global innovation is now multipolar, and Asia’s dynamic markets are an ideal proving ground to bulletproof all stages of the innovation lifecycle. The Chinese mainland drives frontier tech and scale, Japan leads acquisitions, and Singapore shapes regulatory pathways, while the Hong Kong SAR links these strengths to global capital and commercialization.

After 25 years of driving impactful innovation, HKSTP is evolving into an ecosystem orchestrator, helping bridge innovators, capital and talent across borders. Its mission today, like Hong Kong’s, is global: to be a connected engine and forward-oriented convener of talent, capital, infrastructure and partnerships across sectors and also borders.

As the region continues its flight to quality, the next chapter won’t be judged by startup counts; it will hinge on depth. Can Hong Kong consistently turn research ambition into globally scaled enterprises? Fourteen unicorns signal progress; the real test is whether this momentum can endure.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

Innovation and Technology Special