From dancing robots to DeepSeek, the university helping China to win tech race
A s it grows in economic and geopolitical might, China likes to find heroes, whether exemplary communists, successful businessmen or Olympic gold medallists. Its latest is a university.
Twenty years ago, the sweeping campus of Zhejiang University in China's one-time capital Hangzhou would not feature in any lists of top international seats of learning. Even now, when it ranks among the world's best, it would probably elicit the reaction 'Where?' from most people outside China.
But as of this year that has changed, thanks to a legion of earnest young tech entrepreneurs — they can reasonably be called nerds — like Liu Chang and Sean Pan.
Zhejiang University campus in Hangzhou
ALAMY
Zhejiang has won the nickname locally as the 'mother of little dragons' — new tech start-ups like the AI company DeepSeek that are taking the world by storm. And there are more dragons on their way, if Chang and Pan have their way.
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