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Why Hangzhou is China’s AI hotspot
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A promenade at Dream Town, a facility for start-ups and one of the numerous investments in tech made by the Chinese government in Hangzhou.
PHOTO: QILAI SHEN/NYTIMES
Meaghan Tobin and Siyi Zhao
HANGZHOU, China – It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and dozens of people sat in the grass around a backyard stage where aspiring founders of tech start-ups talked about their ideas. People in the crowd slouched over laptops, drinking strawberry Frappuccinos. A drone buzzed overhead. Inside the house, investors took pitches in the kitchen.
It looked like Silicon Valley, but it was Liangzhu, a quiet suburb of the southern Chinese city of Hangzhou, which is a hot spot for entrepreneurs and tech talent lured by low rents and proximity to tech companies like Alibaba and DeepSeek.
