China’s leading technology entrepreneurs, including Huawei Technologies founder Ren Zhengfei and Xiaomi founder Lei Jun, voiced their confidence in the country’s development prospects at a symposium chaired by President Xi Jinping this week.
Ren, the face of China’s resilience against US hostilities in technology, told Xi that concerns had eased over China’s lack of home-grown chips and operating systems – the “heart and soul” of modern technology – according to a report from the People’s Daily on Friday.
“I firmly believe that a stronger China is rising at an accelerated pace,” the 80-year-old founder of the US-sanctioned telecoms equipment giant was quoted as saying.
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Lei, the CEO of smartphone and electric vehicle (EV) maker Xiaomi, said “there is nothing that cannot be overcome” in China’s progress, despite the “changes in international winds and clouds” – likely a reference to the intensifying Sino-US tech rivalry.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, centre, attends a symposium on private enterprises in Beijing on Monday. Photo: Xinhua alt=Chinese President Xi Jinping, centre, attends a symposium on private enterprises in Beijing on Monday. Photo: Xinhua>
He added that Xiaomi’s revenues had been growing at “more than 30 per cent” after two years of decline. The Beijing-based company is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter financial results on March 18.
While the People’s Daily article did not mention the US directly, Xi’s symposium with the country’s top entrepreneurs on Monday came as China shows perseverance under US export restrictions aimed at curbing the country’s technological advances. Breakthroughs, such as the artificial intelligence (AI) models from start-up DeepSeek, have been hailed as China’s secret weapon to surviving the tech war.
DeepSeek founder and CEO Liang Wenfeng attended the symposium but did not make any speeches.
Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics and the youngest entrepreneur at the meeting at just 35, told Xi that the humanoid robot developer and its team were “born and raised in China”. In response, Xi said the country’s innovation required contributions from a younger generation.
Yu Renrong, founder of Will Semiconductor and the only delegate from the legacy chip industry at the symposium, told Xi that the “localisation ratio” – the proportion of domestically developed technology and equipment – continued to increase in the semiconductor supply chain, with momentum seen in both “upstream and downstream” sectors.
