Unicorn surge outcome of holistic ecosystem: China Daily editorial

China has expanded the number of its unicorn start-ups to 381 as of early last month, 38 more than the same time last year, cementing its position as the world's second-largest home for billion-dollar start-ups, according to the latest Global Unicorn Index 2026 released by Hurun Research Institute.

Eight years ago, the world's unicorn economy revolved around e-commerce. It then shifted toward fintech. Today, artificial intelligence has become the new gravitational center, with semiconductors, robotics, life sciences and new energy forming the next layer of high-tech competition. China has not merely participated in this transition, but also has become one of its principal architects.

According to Hurun rankings, China's unicorn count has risen from roughly 227 companies six years ago. This year's report records 80 new Chinese unicorns — roughly one every five days — while 26 graduated through public listings, the highest number of exits in five years, and some downgraded or closed. This reflects a healthier entrepreneurial pipeline in related industries in which successful companies are continually replaced by younger innovators.

DeepSeek's rise from its founding in 2023 to become one of the world's most valuable AI start-ups illustrates how quickly new technological champions can emerge when research capability, capital and market demand reinforce one another.

The real story is about ecosystems. Innovation flourishes when universities generate ideas, entrepreneurs commercialize them, investors provide patient capital and markets supply continuous feedback. China's increasingly integrated innovation ecosystem has quietly become its unique comparative advantage.

This reflects a sophisticated environment for innovation. Successful start-ups require not merely abundant capital but dense networks of talent, experienced founders, universities, industrial partners and sophisticated customers. They also depend upon what venture investors increasingly describe as "patient capital" — investors willing to tolerate uncertainty rather than demand immediate profitability. China's combination of government guidance funds, private venture capital and abundant application scenarios has gradually built precisely such an environment.

Rather than picking a handful of national champions, policy aims to cultivate entire innovation layers across sectors, allowing thousands of smaller enterprises to experiment across AI, semiconductors, biotechnology, brain-computer interfaces and 6G.

Equally important is the relationship between innovation and opening-up. China's AI companies continue contributing to global open-source communities. Robotics companies source technologies internationally while exporting competitive products. Foreign entrepreneurs continue relocating manufacturing to China because its industrial ecosystem remains exceptionally efficient.

The combination of global knowledge and domestic industrial capability creates what is being called "China Opportunity 2.0", which refers to participation in one of the world's fastest-moving innovation arenas and not just access to China's superlarge market.

At a time when international supply chains face growing uncertainty, China continues emphasizing high-standard opening-up, deeper international innovation cooperation and integration into global industrial networks. Rather than presenting technological development as a zero-sum contest, China is proving that advanced manufacturing, AI, green technologies and digital infrastructure can generate shared opportunities for international partners.

Statistics show that R&D investment in China by multinational corporations accounted for 14.3 percent of their total global R&D spending last year, and 14,000 new foreign-invested enterprises were established in China's scientific research and technical services sector, a year-on-year increase of 27.2 percent.

History shows that long-term innovation strengths depend less on "small yards, high fences" than on creating systems capable of generating repeated entrepreneurial experiments. That may ultimately explain why attempts to isolate China technologically have produced fewer results than many expected. Restrictions cannot break the increasingly dense connections linking Chinese laboratories, venture capital, manufacturers, digital platforms and enormous domestic markets.

The lesson to be drawn from Hurun's latest rankings is not triumphalist but structural. Countries build innovation power by constructing ecosystems. Judged by that standard, China's unicorn boom is less an extraordinary event than the increasingly predictable outcome of a system that has never ceased evolving — and one that continues to invite the world to grow alongside it.