{"id":169722,"date":"2019-04-16T16:46:29","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T14:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovationorigins.com\/?p=169722"},"modified":"2019-04-16T16:46:29","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T14:46:29","slug":"china-is-the-worlds-innovation-powerhouse-and-eindhoven-can-position-itself-to-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/en\/china-is-the-worlds-innovation-powerhouse-and-eindhoven-can-position-itself-to-benefit\/","title":{"rendered":"China is the world\u2019s innovation powerhouse \u2013 and Eindhoven can position itself to benefit"},"content":{"rendered":"

As head of innovation for the Shanghai-based XNode powered by HighTechXL<\/a>, Luuk Eli\u00ebns has devoted the past two years to helping to build scalable tech companies in China. Speaking at the recent Beyond Tech<\/a> HighTechXL<\/a> showcase at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven<\/a>, Eli\u00ebns told the audience: \u201cChina is<\/em> the new frontier of innovation. Not next week, not tomorrow, but today\u201d. Explaining that Eindhoven is generating technology that China would like to make use of, he argued that this innovative Dutch city is in a prime position to collaborate with the Asian giant from a position of strength \u2013 provided that it takes smart precautions to protect its technology.<\/p>\n

More on the Beyond Tech Event here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be smart, and not na\u00efve, by creating win-win solutions. The two core lessons that I have, from my experience over the past two years, are, firstly, to make sure you keep your IP and technology in Europe and that you do a licensing deal with your Chinese counterpart. Secondly, find a good local partner to help you go to market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, following the uproar and debate related to industrial espionage<\/a> at the Dutch tech company ASML, there is growing resolve to approach such collaboration in a smart fashion.<\/p>\n

Read also: Why deep tech is an unfair advantage for startup city Eindhoven<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Making the case for the growth opportunity in China, and why he believes it is the foremost technological powerhouse globally, Eli\u00ebns pointed to the scale of resources to which China has access, the range of innovation development models that exist simultaneously in China, the role of the Chinese government in strategically pushing innovation forward, and the rapid rate of adoption of new technology by the Chinese consumer.<\/p>\n

A new university each week<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Knowledge resources in China are growing at a staggering pace, driving the capacity for innovation. \u201cIn China, a new university is opened every single week. And the sheer pool of resources and talent is paying off; China is producing twice the number of patents as the US, and ten times as many as in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read also: China systematically favours local patent applications<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

These resources are being applied in a way which is becoming far more interesting and complex than the \u201ccopy and paste\u201d approach that had been typical in the past. Eli\u00ebns described the emerging models of technological innovation as ranging from \u201ccopy and integrate\u201d (e.g. incorporating many more functionalities than the original technology), and \u201cintegrate and design\u201d (e.g. incorporating completely new experiences), to application research (e.g. the developments in facial recognition).<\/p>\n

\u201cChina is moving from \u2018copy and paste\u2019, towards fundamental research, and is going there very, very fast.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read also: ASML: The suggestion that we were somehow the victim of a national conspiracy is wrong<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Using high-speed train technology as an example, he showed that, until 2005, China didn\u2019t even feature in a global ranking of the length of train networks by country. Today, it has 25.000 kms of high-speed rail network. It started by importing the underlying power-train technology, from Germany and the US. It improved this technology over time to the extent that it is now exporting this technology all over the world. \u201cSo, what started as copy and paste, has become copy and improve. That\u2019s<\/em> innovation in China.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
(c) XNode<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Strategic push from government<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The role of government in pushing forward innovation in China is pivotal. Eli\u00ebns described the approach as \u201cextremely strategic and much more open than we [as outsiders] think\u201d. The government\u2019s ambition to become the top artificial intelligence (AI) player in the world by 2030 has prompted it to target local tech giants. Baidu<\/a> (in the area of autonomous driving), Alibaba<\/a> (smart cities), Tencent<\/a> (healthcare), iFlyTek<\/a> (voice intelligence) \u201care all heavily subsidised and incentivised to develop this raw R&D technology for AI, with one important precondition: that the technology developed needs to be accessible to different partners and startups in China. So, the technology that is developing needs to be open source\u2026 That is how strategic the government is\u201d.<\/p>\n

The picture of China as an innovation powerhouse is completed with his view that the consumer is willing to adopt innovation at a rapid rate. To a large extent, this is owing to the emerging nature of the economy, which means that China is leapfrogging directly to the latest technologies. For instance, mobile payments technology has quickly been adopted across industries and across demographic groups, as consumers transition from cash, and bypass the now-outdated banking and payments technologies entrenched in more-developed economies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether you like it or not, China is the new powerhouse of innovation. We need to face the facts. If we don\u2019t, we will miss the boat.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As head of innovation for the Shanghai-based XNode powered by HighTechXL, Luuk Eli\u00ebns has devoted the past two years to helping to build scalable tech companies in China. Speaking at the recent Beyond Tech HighTechXL showcase at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven, Eli\u00ebns told the audience: \u201cChina is the new frontier of innovation. Not next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1677,"featured_media":508897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[31794,8098,3516,825,4379,484,33656,4151,33659],"location":[6763],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-169722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sustainability-nl","tag-beyond-tech","tag-china-en","tag-eindhoven-en","tag-high-tech-campus-en","tag-hightechxl-en","tag-innovation","tag-leapfrog","tag-patents","tag-xnode","location-netherlands"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Erika van der Merwe","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/erika-van-der-merwe\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Luuk-Eliens_XNode-c-HighTechXL.jpeg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Sustainability<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Sustainability<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Beyond Tech<\/a>","china<\/a>","Eindhoven<\/a>","High Tech Campus<\/a>","hightechxl<\/a>","innovation<\/a>","leapfrog<\/a>","Patents<\/a>","XNode<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Beyond Tech<\/span>","china<\/span>","Eindhoven<\/span>","High Tech Campus<\/span>","hightechxl<\/span>","innovation<\/span>","leapfrog<\/span>","Patents<\/span>","XNode<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 7 years ago","modified":"Updated 7 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 16, 2019","modified":"Updated on April 16, 2019"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 16, 2019 4:46 pm","modified":"Updated on April 16, 2019 4:46 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=169722"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=169722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}