China’s southern tech hub Shenzhen spent a record amount on research and development (R&D) last year, rivaling Beijing and vastly exceeding that of neighboring Hong Kong to cement its position as a national research mecca. Shenzhen’s R&D expenditure jumped to CNY223.66 billion in 2023, surpassing the CNY200 billion mark for the first time and up by nearly 19% from the previous year. R&D made up just under 6.5% of the city’s gross domestic product (GDP), breaking through 6% for the first time.
That made Shenzhen, home to Big Tech companies like Huawei Technologies and Tencent, the second-largest R&D hub in China in terms of both absolute expenditure and spending relative to GDP, according to the municipal government. Top-ranked Beijing put CNY294.71 billion into R&D last year, representing over 6.7% of its GDP. The Chinese capital is home to many of the nation’s top educational institutions and research facilities. In terms of enterprise R&D spending, however, Shenzhen said it took the lead. The city’s companies spent CNY208.57 billion on R&D in 2023, accounting for over 93% of total R&D spending in Shenzhen.
Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings added more than 3,000 jobs in the third quarter, in a sign that the country’s most valuable technology company is on a new growth trajectory after the industry was beset by downsizing in recent years. Tencent had 108,823 employees by the end of September, up 3% year-on-year, according to its quarterly earnings results. Until this year, Tencent’s payroll had mostly been in decline after peaking in March 2022, when it had 116,213 employees, the South China Morning Post reports.
The China Daily adds that China’s centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have invested more than CNY1 trillion annually in research and development (R&D) over the past two years. Last year, investments by SOEs in strategic emerging industries increased by 32.1% year-on-year. In the first nine months of this year, the value of such investments grew by 17.6% year-on-year, and the amount accounted for nearly 40% of the total investment by SOEs. In 2023, centrally-administered SOE's total investment reached CNY6.2 trillion, up 6.9% year-on-year.
