China takes center stage at world’s biggest tech show

Global Business

At Consumer Electronics Show, there are around 4,000 exhibitors on the various show floors. And a sizable portion are Chinese companies – about one-third.

CGTN’s Mark Niu takes a look at how Chinese tech is impacting the show.

In the heart of CES, the self-proclaimed Google of China, Baidu, held an event called Baidu World. Chief Operating Officer Qi Lu said Baidu is focused on accelerating Artificial Intelligence at what he called “China Speed.”

“The United States is still by far the best, but however, the gap between China and the United States is closing. And closing fast. What will give an edge to China is a much larger population and a fast growing market,” Lu said.

Chinese startups are front and center at CES. Take Comper, which began in Silicon Valley but moved to China where it could draw from a wider pool of engineers. Comper has built mobile software and devices that monitor a women’s fertility cycle and later during pregnancy, help to keep the mother and fetus healthy. 

“I was trying to get pregnant, but I tried so hard for four years already. There was no product helping me to get pregnant efficiently. A concept came to me that probably women needs something to get to know themselves well,” Han Du, Comper Founder & CEO, said.

And at this year’s CES, virtual reality exhibits are actually down 30 percent while augmented reality exhibits are up 20 percent. Latching onto that trend is the Shanghai company, Realmax, which is just about to release this augmented reality headset. I slip it on and enter an entire new world.

With a 100-degree range of view, the headset will have one of the largest fields of visions in the augmented reality industry.  CES is also the place for many Chinese startups to get wider exposure to an international audience.

“My company’s first time here to show the product so very excited and also nervous,”  Will Wu, Founder of Dreamlight, Inc. said. Wu is from Shenzhen and has created an eye mask that monitors your sleep and uses information from the wearer’s DNA to adjust lights and sound to foster better sleep. “I hope through sleep data and gene technology I can find a new sleep gene to help people to get better sleep.”

So whether big or small, Chinese companies are increasingly choosing CES as a venue to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.