My recent trip to Beijing and Shanghai has me convinced China is the next technological superpower.

This blog lays out the data so you can make your own judgment.

China is the worlds second-largest economy with a GDP of $7.5 trillion, and an average 9.71 percent annual GDP growth (since 1990).

Check out Shanghai in 1990 (27 years ago) versus Shanghai today.

Shanghai 1990

Shanghai today

Recently, China is getting into the venture capital business in a big way. A really, really big way. Venture capital raised in China tripled year over year to $250+ billion in 2016. Thats the biggest pot of money for startups in the world.

Consequently, China is undergoing a technological renaissance with thousands of startups and dozens of multi-billion-dollar tech companies springing up.

Companies like Alibaba, Tencent and Xiaomi are capitalizing on Chinas 700+ million Internet users.

A Chinese delivery company, ZTO Express, raised $1.4 billion in its public debut. This was the biggest US IPO of the year (in 2016).

China is a manufacturing powerhouse producing 25 percent of the worlds goods and 70 percent of its mobile phones.

Today there is a list of 600+ Chinese companies waiting to go public.

Lets talk about manufacturing. 100 million people in China work in manufacturing. FOXCONN is the worlds largest contract electronics manufacturer. Notable customers include Apple, Kindle, Playstation and Xbox.

In 2015, China became the worlds largest producer of photovoltaic power. China also led the world in production and use of wind power and smart grid technologies.

China owns 70 percent of the commercial drone market. They havealso increased their space budget considerably over the last few years. And their human spaceflight program is very serious.

China has truly become an international technology superpower.

Image Credit: Peter Diamandis via YouTube

Read more:

China Is On its Way to Being the Next Tech Superpower - Singularity Hub