Making it in the megacity

Two decades ago, many Chinese science and engineering students aspired to work overseas or to study at the country’s leading academic institutions in Shanghai and Beijing. Now, their choices have expanded to include some of the world’s most innovative and influential technology companies, such as big-data and technology firm Tencent, world-leading drone manufacturer DJI and telecommunications firm Huawei. All are home-grown Chinese companies rooted in science, and all three are based in Shenzhen, a city of more than 13 million people that, five decades ago, was little more than a collection of marshy, agricultural villages across the border from the then-UK colony of Hong Kong

Shenzhen and the ten cities surrounding it — an area known historically as the Pearl River Delta — are fast becoming a draw for scientists as China’s government knits them into an integrated economic region in a scheme known as the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area, or the GBA. The region is already the largest urban area in the world, with a population of 72 million people and the economic and scientific clout to match. Government plans are often lacking in detail, but the core goal is clear: to connect the individual, now-competing, cities through transport and economic links into a single megacity — in the next 15 years.

You can see how the city changes day by day. There are more coffee shops, schools and cinemas. And although Zhuhai is still a rather underdeveloped area for the biotech sector, there are promising signs. One is DigiFluidic, a company launched in 2018 that is working on microfluidic technologies that will make it easier to detect disease in humans and animals. For now, we still tend to work with headhunters to attract candidates from outside Zhuhai.

We also opened a laboratory at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park (HKSTP) in January this year, because we were able to hire a senior scientist, Suki Man-Yan Lee, who is ideally suited to lead research into the selection and screening of potential drug candidates. When we visited the HKSTP, we found that if we opened a lab there, they would agree to subsidize the salaries of staff, which would make our hiring costs lower: salaries are a lot higher in Hong Kong than in Zhuhai. We have four staff members working with Suki in Hong Kong.

Andy Tsun is a biologist and co-founder of Biotheus in Zhuhai.

I’m studying for my PhD in engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Specifically, I’m training an algorithm using deep-learning techniques to guide a robotic arm to paint a piece of traditional Chinese artwork. In the future, the idea is that this research could be applied in situations where robots need to handle fragile and delicate materials, such as removing tissue to perform a biopsy or removing tumours during surgery.

There are many different work options for me after I finish my PhD. I could start a company, license my research to a manufacturer or become a consultant to businesses who need expertise in robotics.

Intelligent robots are important for the future of manufacturing, and so in my field there are plenty of well-paid engineering jobs, but also lots of people who want them.

I’m thinking about starting my own company that develops educational materials for students aged 12 to 15 years, to help them understand basic engineering ideas. These might include the logic behind designs we use every day, for example the shape and form of a chair. I’m passionate about encouraging young people to become more interested in science and engineering.

I was born in Hong Kong and have always found it a diverse city. People come to live and work here from all over the world. The GBA project is connecting the city more firmly to the Chinese mainland. For example, my university set up a start-up incubator called InnoHub in its Shenzhen Research Institute in 2018, which is a centre for CUHK researchers and alumni to found companies in Shenzhen. Over the past 2 years, 45 start-up teams have joined, including a medical-imaging company called Imsight and a voice-recognition team called VoiceAI Tech. I think these kinds of initiative will attract more scientists and engineers to come and work in the area.

Because Hong Kong is an international financial centre, start-up projects that launch there have access to investors from across the world, whereas the manufacturing and fast prototyping can be done in factories on the Chinese mainland. The city is also well connected by trains and roads to manufacturing cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

I know many CUHK students who are planning to join or establish start-ups in the GBA after they graduate.

Yun Yee Leung is a PhD student in engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

I work at Kitty Annie, a beauty-technology company based in Shenzhen that was started in 2019. I arrived in Shenzhen in April this year, when people were able to travel again in China after coronavirus lockdowns eased.

This was a change of plan for me: I had moved home to Qingdao, a city on the east coast in Shandong province, after leaving London last September. I had intended to apply for PhD positions in England but began looking for positions closer to home because of COVID-19.

I like Kitty Annie. I enjoy being part of an entrepreneurial team. Every day is busy and full, and work takes up most of my life. We launched our first line of products this year, and we sell a body-hair removal kit and hair-removal gel. My job is to look for new ingredients to put in future products, and to continue development of our current ones. For example, I’ve recently been looking at compounds in strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and acai berries that could help to produce an anti-ageing effect when added to skin creams.

Every day is busy and full, and work takes up most of my life. We launched our first line of products this year, and we sell a body-hair removal kit and hair-removal gel. My job is to look for new ingredients to put in future products, as well as continue to develop current ones. For example, I’ve recently been looking at the properties in strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and acai berries that could help produce anti-ageing effects when added to skin creams.

We try not to test our formulas on animals, where possible. This is unusual in China.

To choose which ingredients to use, I explore published research in cosmetics, data from suppliers and the results of tests we order from external laboratories to come up with new formulas.

My master’s degree in structural and molecular biology at Imperial College London gave me a deeper understanding of what to look for when reading information about ingredients sent by manufacturers. I’ll look at the experiments they performed and evaluate whether their results seem reasonable. For example, I recently chose a blueberry extract, made in the Daxing’anling region in northern China, after reviewing materials from domestic sellers and overseas.

The main advantage of Shenzhen to me is the cuisine. The city attracts immigrants from other cities, and they’ve brought their top culinary skills. My favourite dishes are chopped pepper fish heads from Hunan province, pea noodles from Chongqing and donburi, which is a Japanese rice dish.

My home town of Qingdao is famous for its beautiful coastal scenery and temperate climate. In comparison, I find the weather in the southern city of Shenzhen rather hot and humid.

I hear a lot of negative opinions about living in Shenzhen: the city has grown rapidly and still has many problems and areas to be improved. Resources in areas such as education and health care are limited: people struggle to get access to good-quality social services.

But I think Shenzhen’s a great place for young people to work. The city feels full of opportunity. You can easily find work in exciting, emerging industries, such as Internet-based companies.

Jili Yang is a biologist at Kitty Annie in Shenzhen.

I help to develop new materials for advanced engineering applications, such as turbine blades and turbochargers for use in aeroplanes, as part of my work as an assistant professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the City University of Hong Kong.

For example, our team recently developed a new type of material by adding boron to a metal alloy. Adding this element causes changes in the crystalline structure of the material that make it stronger, more flexible and capable of withstanding high temperatures.

Our group is hoping to get a patent for this work and then we can look for investors to start a business with, or work with the steel and automobile companies in the GBA to develop the product.

One remarkable thing about this city, and the GBA, is its lightning-fast take-up of new technologies. Many high-tech companies have headquarters in the GBA, such as Huawei and Tencent. For early-career scientists like me, this feels like a huge opportunity to realize creative ideas and work at the cutting-edge of technology.

In 2015, I was awarded a PhD grant of US$41,000 by the regional government that enabled me to move to Hong Kong and join this university. The university’s Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study then awarded me a postdoc fellowship of $5,100 per month, which ended in August. I stayed at the university as an assistant professor.

I think this sort of career path is becoming more common: when I graduated from Xiamen University in 2014 with my bachelor’s degree, few students on my course planned to come to the GBA to work or continue their research. But now, more of my peers tell me they’re going to southern cities to work as engineers. I also get the impression that more students are thinking of pursuing their PhD and postdoc studies in cities such as Hong Kong and Shenzhen, rather than Beijing and Shanghai.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Hong Kong was not subject to lockdown in the same way as the Chinese mainland, so I was still able to go into work wearing a mask. The main obstacle was recruiting new researchers, because many students from the Chinese mainland were reluctant to travel to Hong Kong or overseas, because they didn’t want to have to go through quarantine.

Cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan in the GBA have become international hubs of advanced manufacturing where graduates in my field can find good jobs to start their careers. These cities also generally provide higher salaries to young people than cities such as Xiamen. I think this is because they’re growing so rapidly.

Tao Yang is a materials scientist at the City University of Hong Kong.

Interviews by Sarah O’Meara and additional research by Ivy Huang. These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

This article is part of the Nature Spotlight on China’s Greater Bay Area, an editorially independent supplement. Advertisers have no influence over the content.