We Investigated China’s Silicon Valley (It's Not What We Expected)

to a global economic Powerhouse they're talking about social transformation economic transformation no cities in the history of human civilization as we know that was able to do this it all started when I kept seeing these posts everywhere about India becoming a superpower you know the ones where everyone's saying how we are going to be China become the world's Factory and honestly with all these opinions flying around I started questioning what is actually happening in China right now I mean for the last 20 years they've been making everything that phone you're watching this on Chinese your

laptop probably Chinese even the new electric cars everyone's talking about yep those are Chinese too and you know the crazy part this was a country that was once poorer than Africa so the question is how did they pull this off what is the secret sauce you know everyone's got opinions about China but how many people have actually been there to see what is happening so when we got the chance we decided to do something about it our team was builting shenen the Silicon Valley of China for a project so we took this opportunity to study

and learn about what China is really like they visited factories spoke to so many Natives and saw the actual state of the city let me show you what we found cuz trust me it was nothing like what we had [Music] expected now before we begin our trip through China and show you all that we discovered and learned here's something interesting have you ever thought about what makes a country grow okay so there's this economist Robert solo who kind of got it right he says it's three things Capital labor and Technology the country start by building

stuff that's factories machines infrastructure but there's the catch there's a limit to how much you can grow just by building things the real game changer is actually technology so let's begin our journey through China the first surprise actually hit our team as soon as they landed you know how we always complain about pollution in our cities so just out of curiosity they did a quick aqi check there guess what the number was 31 that two in an industrial house not bad at all right but that was just the beginning our first real interesting experience of

the Chinese Tech and automation that we have been hearing about came from the taxi driver you know how we're also used to Google Maps right he wasn't using Google Maps he was using something called aaps and I want you guys to see this now this app wasn't just showing directions it was actually showing real time traffic signals and speed cameras every traffic light every speed trap literally everything was on this so when the taxi driver was asked about it he shared that it was made by Alibaba and everyone there is using it and apparently it's

extremely accurate and finally they arrived at their hotel just a regular Hotel nothing fancy and what do they find robots no display pieces but actual working robots moving around getting into elevators by themselves delivering stuff to rooms now obviously this will get anybody intrigued so they ask the receptionist about it and she shared that this is literally found in almost all hotels of China and it actually does a bunch of things so the kitchen staff loads it with food and it automatically delivers the same to the rooms the receptionist was like we've had these for

years and it's honestly very very common when you hear something crazier alibaba's been running a completely automated hotel in China since 2018 no human staff at all how Wild is that now here's when things started getting really interesting and we also started learning more about the culture in China so when the team tried to pay for something with cash people literally looked at them like they were from another Century you know just like we have UPI in India in China as well every single thing happens through your phone but here's the interesting part most of

it is all through one single app check this out this is we chat imagine if WhatsApp Netflix Uber PTM and Spotify had a baby that is WeChat for you you want to text someone WeChat you need to book a cab WeChat watch videos WeChat make payments vat it has 1.3 billion monthly active users equating to about 80% of China's population now I think I've mentioned in a lot of our videos how much we love studying infra the roads so I was asking my team how's the commute how the infra there so they made a very

interesting observation on how almost every taxi in shenen is electric not some not most literally 99% so at first we assume that maybe it's just the taxis but no a large number of regular people are driving EVS too guess why China has a strange Lottery system for gas vehicle number plates so many people who've been in the lottery pool for longer than 5 years competing with more than 3 million fellow residents for one of these ples you see traffic congestion and air pollution are such big headaches there that the government since 2011 has used this

Lottery to restrict the number of cars registered each year but on the other hand if you look at EES you can just walk in and drive out no Lottery no waiting now let me show you some interesting numbers around this running an electric vehicle there costs around 600 Yan that's around 7,000 rupees per month but if you look at a gas vehicle that's between 1700 to 3,800 Yan that's 18,000 to 41,800 rupes so the math is pretty clear right now this is also the reason why there's been such a big boom of eveve industry in

China now coming back to the roads so when it came to maintaining Road discipline and stopping people from disrupting the Traffic Systems the government has installed AI facial recognition cameras and it was quite interesting to see because literally nobody not even a single person the team saw jumped a signal traffic light you know through this trip as we were continuously talking to our teams and kind of immersing ourselves in this high-tech environment we began to realize how rapidly AI is growing across the world and in workplaces it wasn't just about robots or cameras AI was

literally present in hospitals classrooms grocery stores everywhere and witnessing these advancements firsthand made us realize that embracing AI is no longer just an option but a necessity for all it also made me think about M's law the observation of the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every 2 years effectively doubling computing power while the cost halves the mura mainly talks about semiconductors and Hardware it also symbolizes the exponential Pace at which technology advances you know none of us know how much more technology will evolve but this experience in China served as a wakeup

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their course on generative AI for software development I'm linking the course in the description below now you know one more important thing we observed in China was that automation wasn't something which was restricted to normal civilian life alone so our team has set up multiple meetings with different different vendors for one project that we had experimenting with at AOS so one of the vendors had invited the team to his Factory and offered a full tour so as the team ventured deeper inside the factory and reach the production floor they were literally amazed inside this massive

room these giant machines were turnning our products at an unimaginable speed all in one go and you know what there were more than 20 machines and only one person overlooking them now it wasn't that the entire Factory had a single worker but the human to machine ratio was interesting the humans that were there they were mainly working on the assembly lines now apart from this there was one more thing that really intrigued us about the factory workers that's the wages a factory worker in China makes about 8,871 per month that's about 1 lakh 3,000 you

know that's when we also realize something that labor in China is not cheap at least not anymore the second vendor that we had set up a meeting with said that this has actually been a pretty common myth outside China because it used to be a thing of the past when China especially shenen was starting to become the electronic Hub of the world in fact the labor costs in China are now more than many Asian countries too so the labor is not cheap anymore why are companies still going to China for manufacturing and what explains their

unprecedent ented growth in manufacturing the secret Source now their competitive Advantage as Economist Michael pattis puts it unlike the usual make it cheaper game China wins by getting massive support from his government we're talking topnotch infrastructures PD clearances and super cheap credit that Lads foreign companies to setup shop there so between 1985 and 2005 foreign investment P into China at nearly 3% of its GDP annually way more than Japan ever saw during its boom but it's not just foreign cash the Chinese government has been throwing support at domestic companies too setting up around 2,000 funds

since 2014 to boost high-tech Industries it's honestly no wonder that China managed to overtake the US in manufacturing in just 15 to 20 years a process that took us a century to pull off against the UK it's absolutely wild so we asked this person that how exactly did China Reach This stage his answer was pretty interesting he was like I'm not going to tell you you have to experience it yourself he said go to this area called hang Bay and visit the Hang Bay Museum if you want to learn about the history of [Music] Shenzhen

so Hong B by the way is the world's largest electronics market and the museum that the team visited had the entire history of how it and shenen came to be what it is today the experience inside the museum was mad by the way check out some of the visuals it had a whole map of chenine with LED lights and some of the most Cutting Edge Technologies from the past and also these cute miniature a robs that were a representation of the future but the most fascinating thing was shenen story let me share you know shenen

was actually a fishing Village back until 1979 with a population of just 30,000 people but in 1980 it all changed when the Chinese government under the leadership of dang Xing designated shenin as the the country's first special economic zone this was actually a bold experiment a testing ground for economic reforms and opening up to the global market this SEC status meant that Shenzhen became a magnet for foreign investment offering tax incentives and a more relaxed regulatory environment entrepreneurs and workers from all over China flocked to the city bringing with them ambition and a willingness to

innovate the population exploded and with that came rap ID Urban Development by the 1990s shenzen had established itself as a manufacturing Hub producing Goods at an unprecedented scale but you know rather than resting on its Laurels the city continued to evolve the local government also invested heavily in infrastructure education technology laying the groundwork for a shift from manufacturing to Innovation fast forward to today and Shenzhen is home to some of the world's leading Tech giants like Huawei tensen and DJI after the museum and learning all about shenen history the team spent a lot of time

speaking to the locals and learn so much about the culture the cost of living how much they spend also what do they think of India number one number one number one now here's where I also want to bust some myths about China and more importantly about its people but before that I want to show you all the data we collected and the quick rundown of the cost of living in a city like shenen we made a whole chart of all the basic expenses that you can look at I'm also going to put it in the

link now starting with rent if you're in shenen renting a one-bedroom apartment outside the city center which could by the way look like this will cost you around 3,500 to 5,1 which is roughly 40,000 to 57,500 rupes now in the city center this jumps to 7,1 to 10,1 or roughly 80,000 to around 1 15,000 rupees then there's basic necessities like electricity and water which is around 300 to 600 W but when it comes to Transportation shenen public transport is incredibly affordable and efficient a monthly pass is around 200 to 400 W an occasional meal outside

cost between 500 to 1,000 W now dining out in nice restaurants in chenin is a bit on the pricier side but the portions and variety were definitely worth it is what my team said and finally for miscellaneous expenses like entertainment and shopping a budget of 1,000 to 2001 in chenin gives you access to some of the best technology entertainment and recreational activities for a family of four though it's approximately 15,000 which is around 1.77 lakhs now coming to the myths you know sitting here in India we all had these thoughts that the Chinese might be

a bit unfriendly especially since China's pretty much cut from the entire world but going around the city meeting all these vendors going to factories talking to so many strangers and visiting the place in real life has made us realize how hospitable Chinese people are also one more thing every time you ask them about India they're all obsessed with Amir Khan and almost every person the team met had watched dungle and three idiots and they really really loved it so at lunch with this potential vendor he mentioned that the business ecosystem the entrepreneurs especially overall seemed

quite happy with the government and credited them for creating an environment for businesses to grow so one of the other locals that the team had met there also gave an example of this local company called zidu which makes these tiny electric cars which the government had helped he shared how in 2019 this company had literally gone bankrupt but the government pumped money into it and last year brought it back to support the EV industry and Entrepreneurship also shared how the government is very meticulous about making their citizens lives better and this was also something the

team observed and shared said that the roads are super clean and almost every second Road had this massive machine sprinkling water and cleaning the roads by the way shenen also has a lot of bucks so local shed the shenen is actually called the sponge city in China and the government has deliberately created a lot of parks for a very particular reason so spun City we learn is a whole Urban concept that the Chinese government has brought that's designed to act like a sponge literally soaking up rainwater instead of letting it run off and cause floods

so in shenen they have done this by creating Pavements tons of green spaces and parks and design them in such a manner that they absorb water and don't let it spread to the city and cause any problems now one more interesting thing that our team observed during this day was that they didn't see a single homeless person in chenin now that made them very curious and then they found out that there's more to the story so in China there's a thing called huko think of it like an internal passport without this Urban Huka migrants come

can't access the same Services as City residents and what it has done is it's created this invisible divide in their society so while yes China is a fascinating country but like every single country it also has got some problems and while the average income of even blue CED workers and quality of life in China seems elevated like India we found that China is also very very complex country and to understand it you need to actually visit it and spend a lot of time there but honestly this trip to China actually left us with a lot

of learnings and we feel like there's so much that we can also learn from them and take and apply to India as well for example the power of good policies cannot be overstated China's deliberate investment in infrastructure education and technology has created a fertile ground for Innovation secondly them investing in human capital through upskilling has really paid off their emphasis on skill development and education has led to some very highly competent Workforce that's ready to adapt and Excel and I feel like by focusing on upskilling here and creating a denser pool of skilled people we

can also harness our vast human resources to drive economic growth this essentially means enhancing vocational training promoting stem education and encouraging continuous learning to prepare our Workforce for the demands of a rapidly evolving global economy now thirdly embracing technology and digital integration can honestly revolutionize daily life and industries alike while India too has made significant strides with initiatives like digital India and UPI I feel like there's a lot of immense potential to further integrate technology to improve efficiency accessibility and Innovation across all the sectors but perhaps the most significant takeaway is the importance of bold

ambition coupled with actionable strategies and honestly here's what makes me really optimistic about India a talent potential is incredible I mean we've all seen how Indians can adap ad and Excel anywhere in the world now imagine if you could create those same opportunities right here in our own country so the question isn't whether India can become the next China the question is can we learn from their Journey while creating our own path you guys tell me what you think please share your thoughts in the comments below this is all for today's video thank you so

much for watching my name is Aina Maya and I'll see you in the next video by the way don't forget to hit the Subscribe button