A growing number of mainland Chinese tech firms are tapping Hong Kong for research talent and overseas expansion, as the Asian financial hub moves to attract Big Tech and start-ups to boost its technology sector.
Arm China, the Chinese unit of British semiconductor firm Arm Holdings, would establish a chip intellectual property research and development centre in Hong Kong in 2026 that would focus on artificial intelligence and robotics, Arm China senior technical director Zou Wei said last month.
The new centre would be located at the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone, and aimed to recruit around 100 people within three years, according to Zou.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Hong Kong had a “significant advantage” that brought together global innovation resources, top-tier industry talent and a mature capital ecosystem, Zou said.
Arm China is among the fifth batch of companies brought to Hong Kong by the Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises (OASES). It had so far drawn more than 102 firms, which were expected to bring around HK$60 billion in investment and create about 22,000 job opportunities, executive director Bryan Peng said in November.
Ten of the 102 companies were currently planning to go public, Peng said.
A screen displays the Hang Seng stock index at the Hong Kong stock exchange, May 20, 2025. Photo: Reuters alt=A screen displays the Hang Seng stock index at the Hong Kong stock exchange, May 20, 2025. Photo: Reuters>
One of the firms with initial public offering plans in Hong Kong is Shenzhen-based start-up RabbitPre, a provider of text-to-video artificial intelligence models. The firm last year launched an open-source video model called Open-Sora Plan, which it said aimed to “reproduce” a “simple and scalable” version of OpenAI’s video generation model Sora.
RabbitPre was focused on commercialising its video AI solutions by offering them to cross-border e-commerce merchants to generate product images, company partner Yingsai Dong said.
The start-up recently established its international headquarters at Hong Kong’s Cyberport business park, according to Dong.
RabbitPre would use its Hong Kong operation for overseas expansion, aiming to reach consumers and enterprise clients in regions including the Middle East, Europe and Southeast Asia, Dong said.
