The exterior of Vipshop's global headquarters in Guangzhou's Pazhou area. [Photo/southcn.com]

The global headquarters of Vipshop, one of China's major online discount retailers, opened on July 6 in the Pazhou area of the Guangzhou demonstration zone for artificial intelligence and digital economy, being the first of its kind to start operation in the area.

"It only took five years from the land auction to final operation. The official operation of the headquarters is expected to start in the second half of this year," said Shen Ya, chairman and chief executive officer of Vipshop.

Shen added that the project, which has an overall investment of about 4.1 billion yuan ($584.72 million), has been designed to undertake the operation of the company's global strategy and core business.

"The operation of Vipshop's project marked that the Pazhou area has entered a new phase as companies are settling down in it in succession. With the operation of other major projects in the area, Pazhou will inject more vitality to Guangzhou's high-quality development," said Li Haizhou, director of Haizhu district.

Stephan Schütz Dipl-Ing, chief designer of Vipshop's project in Pazhou, said that three buildings of the project are connected to each other to make full use of the space while allowing all offices in the buildings to have a splendid view of the Pearl River and the city landscape.

In addition, another 20 projects are under construction in Pazhou, clustering leading companies in AI and digital economy like Alibaba, Tencent, and Fosun.