Amid intensifying global technological competition and fragmented innovation resources, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is uniquely positioned to become a world-class international science and technology innovation center. Leveraging the “one country, two systems” framework, it combines Hong Kong’s strengths in original research and international connectivity with the Chinese mainland’s complete advanced manufacturing chains. Deep cross-border industry-academia-research collaboration has emerged as the most efficient and practical pathway to achieve this goal — and a key strategic fulcrum for China’s open innovation system.
Hong Kong hosts five QS top-100 universities and InnoHK platforms that generate substantial original research in new materials, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and biomedicine. Yet it faces persistent constraints in industrial space, pilot facilities, mass-production supply chains, and local application scenarios, leaving many technologies stuck in laboratories. Qianhai in Shenzhen complements these strengths. Backed by the Greater Bay Area’s manufacturing base and institutional innovations in customs, finance, and talent mobility, it closes the commercialization gap and creates a full-chain model: Hong Kong basic research is followed by Qianhai application and conversion, which is taken up by Greater Bay Area manufacturing, which leads to Hong Kong listing and global expansion.
Results demonstrate clear effectiveness. Under Hong Kong’s Research, Academic and Industry Sectors One-plus Scheme (RAISe+), a significant share of projects have chosen Qianhai for industrialization, with large numbers of university research outcomes successfully commercialized there. Specialized incubators such as the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Youth Innovation and Entrepreneur Hub have attracted hundreds of high-quality Hong Kong firms through low-cost space, dedicated funds, and comprehensive support. University-local joint platforms have produced concrete successes — including flexible diamond thin-film technology selected among the mainland’s top scientific advances, advanced chip thermal-management solutions that achieved mass production and international certification, and robotics teams releasing leading embodied AI datasets.
This distinctive closed-loop innovation ecosystem of the Greater Bay Area — featuring Hong Kong’s cutting-edge basic research, Qianhai’s institutional and cross-border empowerment, Shenzhen’s efficient technological commercialization, large-scale manufacturing in the Pearl River Delta, and global market expansion — has cultivated world-class tech leaders including DJI and SIMO Technology. This collaborative model fully demonstrates the Greater Bay Area’s unparalleled innovative competitiveness and provides a scalable pathway for the region to catch up with and surpass Silicon Valley.
DJI represents the most iconic achievement of this collaborative mechanism. Its core flight control algorithms and spatial perception technologies originate from fundamental research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Supported by Shenzhen’s cross-border policy advantages, technological confirmation, intellectual property protection and industrial resource docking are efficiently completed. After landing in Shenzhen, the technologies undergo systematic optimization, hardware and software integration, as well as commercial verification relying on the city’s mature electronic information industry ecosystem. Finally, Dongguan and Foshan’s sophisticated precision manufacturing clusters support standardized, low-cost mass production. To date, DJI occupies over 70 percent of the global consumer drone market, covering more than 100 countries and regions, securing its dominant global leading position.
Similarly, industrial AI vision leader SIMO Technology has grown out of the Greater Bay Area’s integrated innovation system. Its core team has accumulated more than 100 fundamental AI algorithm patents based on long-term research in Hong Kong universities. With Qianhai’s cross-border innovation support, the team settled its commercialization headquarters in Shenzhen, leveraging local diverse industrial scenarios to continuously polish and iterate intelligent visual inspection solutions. Cooperating with Pearl River Delta manufacturing clusters, the company launched standardized intelligent equipment for 3C electronics, new energy and precision manufacturing industries. Currently, SIMO Technology serves over 3,000 global manufacturers and has deployed more than 10,000 intelligent production lines, becoming a flagship exporter of China’s industrial AI technology.
The success of DJI and SIMO verifies that isolated urban development has obvious ceilings. Only through Qianhai-driven linkage and complementary advantages across the Greater Bay Area can the region release superposition innovation value and build a world-class innovation center competitive with Silicon Valley.
Industrial clusters in semiconductors, new materials, and intelligent equipment, together with dedicated cleanrooms, pilot labs, and targeted policies, further lower costs and remove key bottlenecks. A two-way mechanism allows Hong Kong projects to access mainland application scenarios while mature enterprises can establish international research and development bases in Hong Kong, list on the Hong Kong market, and expand overseas.
This model maximizes the complementary strengths of the two systems, integrates the innovation, industrial, capital, and talent chains, and cultivates new quality productive forces. More importantly, it strengthens China’s capacity to overcome critical technological bottlenecks, absorb global resources, and maintain initiative in global science and technology competition through dual domestic-international circulation. Continuous deepening of Shenzhen-Hong Kong cross-border collaboration remains essential to consolidating the Greater Bay Area as a leading international innovation hub.
The author is chief economic adviser at the Shenzhen Qianhai Authority.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
