Five Stops in Zhongguancun Trace Haidian’s Nearly 40-Year Tech Industry Handoff
A MarsBit field visit to Haidian and Zhongguancun mapped Beijing’s tech evolution through five locations spanning nearly four decades: the Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone Exhibition Center, Dinghao DH3, Leyard Group, Beijing Galaxy General Robot, and the AI Origin Community. Together, the sites connect a timeline that starts with Zhongguancun’s 1988 approval as China’s first state-level high-tech industrial development zone, runs through Leyard’s 1995 founding and Dinghao’s 2003 opening, and reaches newer AI and robotics ventures including Galaxy General, founded in May 2023, and the AI district selected in January as part of Beijing’s first batch of artificial intelligence innovation streets.
The report highlights how Haidian’s strength lies in continuity rather than a single technology boom. At the exhibition center, more than 350 Beijing-based research institutions and companies displayed over 560 technologies and products across a 10,000-square-meter space, covering computing chips, quantum computing, commercial aerospace, medical robotics, energy storage and biomedicine. Dinghao’s shift from a once-famous electronics mall into offices for AI, computing power and robotics firms shows how physical space has been repurposed alongside industrial change. The contrast between Leyard, an established LED display company, and Galaxy General, a fast-rising embodied AI and robotics startup, illustrates how different generations of companies continue to grow from the same talent, capital and university ecosystem. At the AI Origin Community near Tsinghua University and Peking University, a housing and startup support program for young founders points to the next stage of Haidian’s effort: keeping talent in place long enough for the next wave of companies to take root.
