A new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs, represented by a group of starting founders who are known as the “Fantastic Four”, reform the global technology landscape and help China in its rivalry with the US.
Liang Wenfeng, founder of the artificial intelligence (AI) Start-up Deepseek, based in Hangzhou, together with Wang Xingxing, Zhang Yiming and Wang Tao, the founders of Unitree Robotics, Bytedance and DJI, are praised for their role in the transforming of their role in the transforming of the Rol in the transforming of their role in the transforming of their role in the reforming of the reforming of their role in the reforming of their role.
The Deepseek's Liang and Unitree's Wang belonged to a group of local business entrepreneurs who were invited last month for a controversial symposium chaired by President Xi Jinping. Wang, the youngest entrepreneur at the age of only 35, said Xi that the humanoid robot developer and her team were “born and raised in China”.
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XI replied that the innovation of the country required contributions from a younger generation, according to a report from the official communist party newspaper people daily.
In contrast to the former generation of Chinese tech entrepreneurs who grew up with memories of absolute poverty – such as Jack Ma of Alibaba Group Holding, Baidu's Robin Li Yanhong and Tencent Holdings' Pony Ma Huiseng – China's new generation of Tech and Opening were started to have started in the country to have started in the country to have started in the country in the country had began in the country and openings. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
Unitree's Wang was born in 1990, while Zhang was born in 1983. The year of birth of Liang was 1985 and Dji's Wang was born in 1980. They grew up in a period that is remembered as the most liberal and open -minded since the founding of People's People's People's People of China, Engineering and Science.
Their education also largely coincided with an era of accelerated globalization, in which Western influence left its mark on Chinese society. Before Liang Deepseek created in 2023, he operated the Hedge Fund High-Flyer Quant, which was inspired by the American Quant Hedge Fund manager Jim Simons. In one of the few published articles by Liang, he wrote a preface to the Chinese translation of The man who has solved the marketThe biography of the American investor.
An important factor in the success of the four entrepreneurs is their experience in securing resources and surviving the very competitive market of China. Compared to their colleagues from Silicon Valley, they were formed by a local upbringing that promoted competitiveness in a brutal market environment, which in turn enabled them to launch groundbreaking technical products with global impact, according to analysts and business professors.
Winston Ma, deputy professor at New York University with a focus on the worldwide AI Digital Economy, said that Chinese founders were good at taking existing technologies – often invented in the West – and quickly test and scales on the Chinese market with a attention to the user experience that reinforces and the costs of delivery.
“If not, you will be history,” said Ma.
Many of them have already become billionaires. Bytedance's Zhang is one of the richest people in China. Their wealth will grow further, because bytedance, DJI, Deepseek and Unitree do not yet have to make first public offers. They all built their companies in the economy of China, led by the State, from a modest start and with little support from the state.
Deepseek, initially a side project at Liang's Quant Trading Business, sent shock waves in Silicon Valley and Wall Street at the end of January after the cheap, powerful R1 and V3 Large Language Models (LLMS) impression on the world.
Wang Tao, founder of DJI. Photo: Xinhua Alt = Wang Tao, founder of DJI. Photo: Xinhua>
Dji, the world's best drone maker, started in the dormitory of Wang Tao, while Zhang's Bytedance, who has Tiktok, had one of the most popular apps in the world, in 2012 a start in a residential flat in Beijing.
Wang Xingxing created Unitree in 2016 and struggled to raise money in the early days. The stock structure of Unitree is very fragmented, with Wang holding 33 percent.
Guo Bai, assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at the China Europe International Business School, said that the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs represented by the Fantastic Four was able to succeed worldwide because of their domestic focus.
“The Chinese market is nowadays one of the most demanding and competing in the world,” Guo said, adding that exposure to the domestic market is an advantage when it comes to the competitiveness of a company.
Travis Kalanick, oprichter en ex-CEO van Uber Technologies-het ride-hailingbedrijf dat al vroeg de Chinese markt binnenkwam, alleen om zijn China-activiteiten af te staan aan Didi Chuxing in Beijing-zei dat Chinese technologiebedrijven toen “met een breuke snelheid” kopieerden “met een brekende snelheid en die strategie uiteindelijk leidde tot innovatie en de mogelijkheid om sommige Amerikaanse bedrijven te verslaan.
Kalanick, who spoke on a podcast in January, described the Chinese Ride-Hailing competition between 2014 and 2016 as an “all-out war”, in which it was explained that as local companies became sharper and faster when replied, they ultimately had no more things to copy, “and then it turns to creativity and innovation”.
Zhang Yiming, founder of Bytedance. Photo: Chinatopix via AP Alt = Zhang Yiming, founder of Bytedance. Photo: Chinatopix via AP>
The Fantastic Four of China has demonstrated innovation at a time when the technology companies of the country have a growing control of American politicians and even members of the audience in the midst of an intensifying rivalry with the US. Tiktok has been in the eye of the storm, while AI has been seen a critical area by both Beijing and Washington and a way to build technical dominance.
Brock Silvers, Chief Investment Officer at Kaiyuan Capital in Hong Kong, said that although Chinese technical entrepreneurs “do their utmost” to support Beijing's global ambitions, the technical development of the country would probably still be considerably influenced by geopolitical factors.
“Self-supply can be feasible, but global acceptance and leadership still largely depend on upcoming developments in an increasingly difficult Sino-US relationship,” Silvers said.
The success of the Fantastic Four has put the entrepreneurs in the nationalist spotlights. Liang was praised as a national hero after the Deepseek models showed how Chinese companies could still develop innovative products, despite American technical limitations, while the folk dance performed by Unitree robots during China's widespread spring festival Gala showed 1 billion Chinese viewers of a challenge of a general turning of a general turning of a general turner of a general turner of a general turner of a general turner of a general turner of a generous of elon. Robot.
The four technical titans are grouped, partly because none has been trained in a foreign country. Dji's Wang studied at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Bytedance's Zhang studied at Nankai University in Tianjin, while Liang went to Zhejiang University in Hangzhou.
As for the founder of Unitree, the most reported anecdote about his education was his “poor” English. Although he was a top science student, Wang with English, and his low scores in the subject – a requirement for postdoctoral study – brought him to Shanghai University rather than at a top school.
However, the influence of unitree from outside China is clear. The first product of the company, Laikago, is named after Laika, the first dog to play the earth as part of the Early Russian Space program. In an interview in 2017, Wang also said that he was inspired by Boston Dynamics, the American Robotics company founded in 1992 when it turned out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree, poses with one of the robots of the company in January 2025. Photo: Handout alt = Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree, poses with one of the robots of the company in January 2025. Photo: Handout>
Bytedance's Zhang was inspired by a trip to Silicon Valley in 2014, where he visited American technical giants such as Facebook, Google and Airbnb. At the time, he also tried the latest electric vehicle from Tesla. After returning to China, Zhang, then 31, wrote in a blog post that “arrives the golden age of China's technology companies”.
In contrast to Millennial US Tech entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman from Meta Platforms, the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs preferred to have kept out of the spotlights and to prevent public comments or performances. Bytedance's Zhang and Dji's Wang have not accepted interviews or have shown public events for years, despite the growing influence of their business rich.
Deepseek's Liang was so media-resentment that he has not made any comments in recent weeks about the business of his company, even when the technology at home and abroad brought newspapers in the headlines. It meant a sharp contrast with his American colleagues such as OpenAi founder Sam Altman, who is a sphere to meet fans and investors.
They are also reserved celebrities without track record of “showing off wealth” – a characteristic that separates them from Chinese tycons in finance and ownership. Zhang reportedly focused on reading AI papers and freeing talent in the industry, while Liang has kept involved in research looking for new breakthroughs.
Jeffrey Towson, founder of Techmoat Consulting, who advises companies on digital strategies, said that Chinese entrepreneurs can certainly compete in global markets such as Latin America and Europe if they could survive in hyper-competitive China.
“If the American company is like football, then Chinese things are rugby,” he said. “They are used to playing a rougher sport.”
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voting report on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMPs Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (C) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
