Shenzhen: where the future is manufactured

In an era when the geography of innovation is being redrawn, Shenzhen emerges not merely as a successful city, but as a systemic model of accelerated and integrated technological development. In just four decades, what was once a fishing village has evolved into one of the most dynamic innovation hubs in the world. Today, anyone wishing to understand where the future is being built — industrially, digitally, environmentally, and geopolitically — mustturn their attention to Shenzhen.

Beyond Silicon Valley: the rise of systemic innovation

Shenzhen is widely recognized as a global leader in the speed of integration between industrial design, prototyping, and mass production. While Silicon Valley still dominates venture capital investment, Shenzhen outpaces innovation centers in “time to scale”: Shenzhen companies like Youibot can move from concept to prototype in as little as 14 days, compared with the typical 2–3 months required in Europe or the United States.

The secret lies in Shenzhen’s horizontally integrated ecosystem. Unlike the vertical specialization typical of Western innovationhubs, Shenzhen synchronizes manufacturing, electronics, AI, sensors, and logistics in a single, interoperable network. This “Shenzhen innovation model” powers thousands of startups and tech giants such as Tencent, BYD and UBTECH, accelerating a seamless pipeline from laboratory breakthroughs to market-ready products.

A view of the headquarter of Tencent in Nanshan District. Sun Yuchen

This extraordinary agility, however, poses critical questions for Europe. Can the EU match this pace without reforming its fragmented regulatory environments and rigid institutional structures?

Building on this innovation model, Shenzhen is now accelerating toward the next technological frontier: artificial intelligence and robotics. The city is positioning itself as a global frontrunner in bothareas. The municipal government’s 2024–2026 action plan for the development of the AI industry aims to nurture at least ten industrial AI champions and more than fifty scalable AI-based products. Startups like EngineAI are piloting humanoid robots integrated directly into smart manufacturing environments.

This transformation is tangible — not theoretical — and is evident in districts like Bao’an and Guangming, where factories and research labs coexist, supported by a policy framework that actively rewards experimentation and industrial R&D. In 2023, Shenzhen allocated approximately US$31 billion to research and development, accounting for over 6% of its GDP — significantly above the OECD average and higher than most EU member states.

But this dynamism is not easily replicable. Europe must ask: are we willing to embrace experimentation zones and adaptive regulations at the local level, or will red tape continue to stifle our competitiveness?

A city that thinks like a platform: urban intelligence in action

Shenzhen is pioneering a new model of urban engineering that blends sustainability, innovation, and forward-looking regulation. It was the first city in the world to fully electrify its taxi and bus fleet, a move that set the stage for its broader green transformation. Its “Sponge City” initiative addresses urban flooding through intelligent water recyclingsystems, while the “Low-Carbon City” program has become a global benchmark for climate-conscious urban planning.

In 2024, Shenzhen was named Smart City of the Year at the World Congress in Barcelona — not just for its use of advanced technologies, but for the coherent integration of green policies, infrastructure upgrades, and innovation incentives into a unified strategic vision.

These are not isolated achievements, but indicators of a deeper systemic intelligence. Shenzhen operates like a platform: a dynamic ecosystem where government, industry, and academia collaboratively design flexible systems that evolve in response to real-world needs.

Nowhere is this platform approach more evident than in the skies — just below 1,000 meters. Shenzhen is rapidly emergingas the global hub for the low-altitude economy, investing heavily in drones, autonomous air taxis, urban air logistics, and precision agriculture. Dozens of aerial mobility startups are based in the city, where drone delivery systems are already operational in designated airspace corridors.

This is not experimentation — it is execution. Shenzhen is becoming as the world’s most advanced regulatory sandbox for low-altitude innovation. In stark contrast, European companies in the same sector often wait up to 24 months just to obtain test permits — a lag that is quickly translating into a competitiveness disadvantage.

Branding and global market perception: a strategic weakness, a collaborative opportunity

Despite Shenzhen’s technological prowess and manufacturing dominance, many local companies still lag in global branding and strategic marketing. While Shenzhen firms excel at rapid innovation and production, few have succeeded in building internationally recognized consumer brands with strong emotional resonance — unlike many of their counterparts in Europe or the U.S. This brand-building gap represents both a weakness and an opportunity.

Here, European companies possess unique expertise. Europe’s heritage in design, storytelling, market segmentation, and premium brand positioning can offer critical value to Shenzhen-based firms aiming to globalize. Through joint ventures or long-term partnerships in brand strategy, digital marketing, and user experience design, Chinese innovators can accelerate their global ascent — not just as manufacturers, but as aspirational brands.
This opens the door to a new, yet underexplored dimension of EU-China cooperation: a fusion of “Made in Shenzhen” efficiency with “Marketed in Europe” emotional intelligence.

Learning from Shenzhen: a personal reflection

Having visited Shenzhen regularly over the past decade, I have witnessed its transformation firsthand. Each visit reveals a city that reinvents itself — becoming faster, smarter, more interconnected. Shenzhen embodies a rare convergenceof hardware and software, public and privatesectors, startup culture and industrial scale.

What impresses me most is its human energy — the engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, and students engaged in a constant cycle of learning, building, scaling, and adapting. Innovation in Shenzhen is not just policy — it is a culture.

A call to action for Europe

Instead of building digital walls, we should build digital bridges. The EU must shift from a defensive stance to one of strategic engagement— through city-to-city smart alliances, innovation partnerships, and shared regulatory testbeds.

A concrete proposal could be the creation of a China–EU Urban Tech Lab, jointly launched by European and Shenzhen’s municipal authorities. This rotating test platform for emerging technologies — such as autonomous mobility, intelligent energy systems, and urban robotics — could alternate between Shenzhen and a leading European innovation hub, such as Munich, Amsterdam, or Milan.

The lab would serve three key missions. First, it would enable the co-development and real-world testing of next-generation technologies in urban environments. Second, it would facilitate reciprocal access to startup ecosystems, allowing European and Chinese innovators to collaborate and scale more easily across markets. Third, it would promote the convergence of standards and foster regulatory innovation, creating common ground for governance of rapidly evolving technologies.

Such a project would send a clear signal: that Europe is ready to help shape the future — not merely react to it.

Final thought: the future is not waiting for us — it is being built

Shenzhen shows that innovation is no longer an event — it is an operating system. It is not a fixed destination but a continuous process of reinvention. The real challenge for Europe is not simply to catch up, but to embrace a new mindset: one that combines speed with strategy, experimentation with scale, and ambition with cooperation.

The future isn’t something we waitfor.
It’s something we build.
And in Shenzhen, they already are.

(Luigi Gambardella serves as President of ChinaEU promoting digital cooperation between China and Europe, a member of the High-Level Advisory Committee of the World Internet Conference since 2015, the Recommendation Committee of World Leading Internet Scientific Achievements since 2020, and a Special Council Member of Shenzhen People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries since 2021, alongside his role as advisor to CGTN Think Tank. Over two decades at Telecom Italia and former Chair of the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association, he has held leadership roles at FTTH Council Europe, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, OECD BIAC, and BUSINESSEUROPE. A globally recognized architect of digital policy across Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, and MENA regions, he frequently speaks at international summits and contributes to tech discourse in media. He holds a Master’s in Business Economics from Università Bocconi.)