Frictionless Supply Chain: The New Tech Titans of China

Rebecca Fannin and Rosemary Coates, Executive Director of the Reshoring Institute, discuss the technology race in China in this installment of the Frictionless Supply Chain.

Fannin is a journalist, CNBC special contributor, and author of five books. She writes about technology, first in Asia and then in the Heartland of America, and now back to China. Fannin published her first book, Silicon Dragon, in 2008, about the rise of technology in China, and now she has written an updated chronicle of the current state of technology in China, The New Tech Titans of China.

In this episode, Fannin returns to the Frictionless Supply Chain podcast to discuss the current state of investment and development in China. So much has changed in the past 20 years, and now things are changing again because of geopolitics and the technology arms’ race, particularly AI.

Many of the venture capitalists who funded so many Chinese start-ups are now selling off their investments in China. This started happening after a 2023 U.S. Congressional investigation into how much U.S. money was being invested in Chinese technology raised concerns. Now the Chinese government has stepped in to fill the void.

Because so many companies still outsource their manufacturing to China, supply chain professionals need to take note of these trends. New policies have taken root, and security risks are now at the forefront.

AI is the big investment now, with China and the U.S. in a dead heat in development. Chinese companies, including Biadu, Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and others, are all investing in AI, robotics, drones, and other manufacturing technology. China is also heavily investing in and developing humanoid robots. China is taking the lead on AI safeguards.

To learn more about the New Tech Titans of China, contact Rebecca Fannin on LinkedIN and Rosemary Coates at [email protected]

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