Uber CEO Is A China Believer

Silicon Valley may not always be considered an epicenter for innovation.

At least that’s what Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is predicting. At the recent Geek Park conference in Beijing, the Silicon Valley veteran said that China’s innovation will soon surpass that of the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Bloomberg reported late last week.

“In the next five years, there will be more innovation, more invention, more entrepreneurship happening in China, happening in Beijing, than in Silicon Valley,” Kalanick explained. “We gotta play our A-game in order to compete with the best.”

Kalanick also reportedly confirmed that Uber’s China division has reached a valuation of more than $8 billion. The ride-hailing company received a $2 billion investment from Chinese firms to boost the domestic unit’s value.

Kalanick isn’t the only one noticing the wealth of opportunity and innovation lying within China’s borders.

As cited by Bloomberg, research from London-based consulting firm Preqin found many of the biggest tech deals are now taking place in China and India, the number of which more than tripled to $16.9 billion as of Oct. 1 of last year, falling just slightly behind the $17.5 billion invested in North America.

As profiled in a Wall Street Journal article last year, the Chinese tech scene has, in particular, transformed the digital payment space in a way that has made smartphones the mainstream way to pay for electronic transactions. What China’s market has formed is an innovative online financial scene that could be a good indication about how the rest of world will soon transact.

“In China, you see a lot of stuff happening for the first time over the mobile and Internet platforms,” Tim Pagett, financial services industry leader at Deloitte China, told WSJ. “China is far ahead of the rest of the world.”