Foreign Investors Flock To China To Study Its Technology Boom
Humanoid robots are working on factory floors, artificial intelligence models are challenging global rivals, and electric-vehicle plants are producing cars at remarkable speed. Together, these developments are drawing a new wave of foreign visitors to China.
Investors and entrepreneurs are paying thousands of dollars for rare access to Chinese factories. They want a close look at what many believe could become the next major technological revolution.
The influx reflects growing fears of a “China shock 2.0”. Western boardrooms and governments are increasingly considering whether Chinese companies could be gaining an edge in advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies.
“Right now, people are looking at China as an object of study and learning — a trend that barely existed just a few years ago,” said Robert Wu, chief executive of Shanghai-based data research firm Baiguan.
Demand For China Technology Tours
Wu said visitors often arrive with misconceptions. For example, some assume China’s robotaxi sector is ahead of the United States. However, domestic policy caution over potential job losses has kept the sector behind its US counterpart, he said.
Wu has organised two tours for more than two dozen investors, entrepreneurs and executives. He charges up to $15,000 for a five-day programme, with around half of participants coming from Southeast Asia.
He is part of a growing industry catering to foreign demand for direct access to China’s innovation ecosystem.
Many visitors keep their trips private. Those known to have travelled include US investment firms Dimension, Capital Group and Thrive Capital, as well as US technology podcaster Lex Fridman.
While detailed data on technology tours remains limited, wider industrial tourism is expanding rapidly. China’s industrial tourism sector generated $17.8 billion last year, according to state media, and is projected to exceed 300 billion yuan ($44.6 billion) by 2029.
Shanghai-based technology tour agency GloPen said enquiries increased 50% in 2026, mainly from European and Singaporean clients. It now organises more than 100 single-day company tours each month.
Factory Floors Offer First-Hand Lessons
“You cannot grasp the true scale, speed, and physicality of Chinese innovation without standing on the factory floor,” said Bertrand Chen, chief executive of the Global Shipping Business Network.
Chen joined an April robotics and emerging technology tour covering three cities. Chinese American investor Rui Ma organised the trip.
Ma, founder of Tech Buzz China, has organised 11 such tours since 2019. He describes them as essential due diligence because Chinese companies are increasingly likely to become competitors, partners, suppliers or investment opportunities in global markets.
The tours cover Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hefei. These industrial centres sit at the heart of China’s expansion in electric vehicles, batteries, artificial intelligence and robotics.
World leaders have also visited Xiaomi’s Beijing auto factory. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz was notably filmed watching Unitree’s dancing humanoid robots in Hangzhou, providing a high-profile display of China’s technological development.
Fear Of Falling Behind
China’s growing industrial tourism industry is supported by government policy. Beijing has pledged to “vigorously promote” industrial tourism and has designated more than 140 official demonstration sites.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of factories offer public tours for around $60.
Xiaomi’s electric-vehicle factory has received more than 250,000 visitors since March 2024. Demand has become so strong that lottery-awarded entry slots have reportedly been resold online for as much as 2,000 yuan ($300).
Xiaomi told Reuters that visitors are selected through an online lottery and that tickets cannot be transferred.
For European executives dealing with weak productivity growth and concerns about falling behind in AI and robotics, China has become an increasingly important destination.
Alex Shengyun Lu, a Shanghai-based AI consultant at Praxis Advisory, has led seven delegations of up to 50 corporate visitors since late 2025. He described an uneasy mood among European executives.
“The smartest people in Europe are acutely aware of the situation. The insecurity is palpable,” Lu said.
Executives generally arrive with two questions, he said: what they can learn from Chinese companies and what lessons they can draw from China’s state-backed approach to technology investment.
“They are coming here with a genuine mindset of humility and learning.”
Lu declined to identify the companies involved because of confidentiality agreements. He said many European executives wanted to understand how China coordinates AI deployment across provinces and what lessons could be applied in Europe.
US-China Tensions Fail To Stop Visits
Some industry observers caution against overstating China’s technological advantage.
“Non-Chinese (tech) companies still have most of the global market share, the most advanced IP, and the biggest profits,” Ma said.
Nevertheless, foreign technology visitors continue to arrive, including Americans, despite rising US-China technology tensions.
“The people who are actually on the ground trying to build physical products don’t care about the politics at all,” said Joshua Woodard, a US manufacturing consultant based in Shenzhen.
He said US robotics companies still rely heavily on Chinese components and hardware. Completely separating the two manufacturing ecosystems, he added, would be extremely difficult.
Shenzhen Becomes A Technology Showcase
No city embodies the trend more clearly than Shenzhen.
The southern technology hub is positioning itself as a showcase for Chinese innovation as it prepares to host this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November.
Foreign visitor numbers rose 70% last year and increased by more than 30% in the first quarter. More than 5 million entries had been recorded this year through August.
Taxis now use English-language announcements, while foreign influencers regularly appear at technology exhibitions.
Local companies are also establishing Silicon Valley-style “hacker houses” where foreign robotics and AI hardware entrepreneurs can live and work, according to Woodard.
“There are WeChat groups with 400 people bouncing between Silicon Valley and Shenzhen, casually crowdsourcing battery or display factories,” said Woodard, who runs factory tours for foreign entrepreneurs in Shenzhen in his spare time.
He said founders were using the 10-day visa-free entry policy to visit Shenzhen and identify manufacturers capable of building their next prototypes.
The influx highlights Shenzhen’s transformation from a low-cost production centre into a key part of China’s drive for technological leadership.
Czech entrepreneur Jan Smejkal, who has lived in Shenzhen for 11 years, said he receives requests almost every day from foreign startup founders who want to visit.
“There is no other place on earth that takes technology to its core and integrates it into daily life quite like Shenzhen.”
With inputs from Reuters
