While American technology giants dominate people’s online lives in Western countries, Tencent and Alibaba have soared by essentially carving up China, the world’s single-largest internet market with more than 700 million online users. That is roughly twice the size of the population of the United States. Chinese people also spend more money online than Americans.
Their surge, which has taken place inside a tightly controlled internet space that has blocked international companies like Facebook, has increasingly set them apart from the rest of China. Despite headline numbers that suggest stable growth, the Chinese economy is grappling with many problems, including heavy debt and continued reliance on rusty industries like steel. Yet Alibaba and Tencent this week both reported financial results that blew past investor expectations, suggesting the future of the Chinese technology world is bright.
Their rise is emblematic of a rebalancing of global technological influence. In recent years, places from Paris to Seoul have claimed the mantle of the next Silicon Valley. Yet the cluster of fast-growing start-ups and internet behemoths coming out of China has emerged as the one true rival in scale, value and technology to the West Coast homes of the American technology renaissance.
