When Deng Xiaoping visited on his southern tour in 1992, Shenzhen was little more than a collection of villages to be gazed at from over the border at Robin’s Nest or Lok Ma Chau. This week, I joined AustCham and the CAANZ to visit BYD and GBI, two examples of how companies based there have, in a generation, grown from nothing to become world – leaders.
Founded in 1994 to make batteries for mobile phones etc, BYD listed in HK in 2002 (and in SZ in 2011), moved into electric vehicles in 2008 and now employs 800,000 people worldwide. In 2025, the company sold 3.97 million fully electric cars (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), twice Tesla’s sales. (BYD even has its own road in Pingshan district and a long one in that it is at #3009.)
We were at the HQ showroom rather than the automated factory (any scope for an observation gallery there?) out the back. Together, they cover 2.2 sq km which seems rather modest when compared to the factory in Zhengzhou, 1,500 km to the north, which covers 22.5 sq km – who measures factories in sq km?!
The R & D is suitably impressive too: 71,000 patents have been applied for (and, so far, 42,000 granted); the Yangwang U9 supercar can do 496 kph; anxiety over charging time and range are things of the past; as is the occasional tendency of batteries to spontaneously combust – gotta watch the nail test! (The parking garage warehouse fire in April was of test and scrapped vehicles so presumably the older technology)
But just as impressive is how to manage, i.e. organise, this extraordinary growth?
Next, how to recharge on the street outside your home? How to recycle those obscure, toxic chemicals at end of life? How to sustainably generate the power necessary to drive all these vehicles?
Down the road at Yantian, BGI was founded in 1999 as part of the world’s first Human Genome Project (HGP); it listed in SZ in 2017 and in 2025 posted revenues of CNY 3.70 billion (US$540 million). The initial investment was US$3.8 billion but it has since moved on from mere genomics to various other types of “omics” and now has more genetic sequencing capacity than the entire EU. There has no doubt been central government support but, I was reliably informed, financing has been self sufficient. Adjacent are ethical issues such as those re human foetuses.
Again, how to manage, i.e. organise, this extraordinary growth? A visionary individual, a supportive government, a workforce eager to learn, no legacy costs to fret about – and access to a lot of finance willing to think big and take a long term view.
