Gavekal Technologies

Abundant data is often considered a Chinese advantage in AI: China’s vast consumer market and industrial base generate a lot of data and potential AI use cases. Yet data availability does not equal usability. Beijing sees the problem and is leading a nationwide effort to collect, process, govern, share, and trade high-quality datasets.

On September 6-11, Gavekal Technologies held its inaugural China Tech Tour with 19 institutional-investor clients. Through a dozen site visits and in-depth conversations with senior executives, we examined China’s semiconductor, AI, new energy, robotics and biotechnology industries. This week’s China Tech Brief explores some of the key findings. By far the biggest theme was the gap between technological capabilities and corporate returns. China has plenty of globally competitive tech companies, but few that generate really attractive earnings.