Ten entrepreneur teams emerged from an international pool of a thousand as eligible to share up to 300 million yuan ($29 million) in R&D subsidies and preferential treatment for locating in Hengqin New Area. Finals were held on Dec 17 in Zhuhai.

Coming in first at the China Hengqin Sci-tech Entrepreneurship Competition was Pachira Information Technology (Beijing) Co. Its team demonstrated the feasibility and market value of voice chips for vehicles. With AI technology as key to their innovation, the chips can identify voice commands to trigger a low-power consumption mode in high-noise environments.

Pachira provides Chinese speech and natural language processing application solutions and related cloud services. It was founded in Silicon Valley in 2009, and Zhongguancun the next year. It has teams in both countries with first-class research and engineering experts in speech technology.

Overall in the contest, projects ranged from new-generation information technology, digital economy, biomedicine, new materials, and marine economy among other strategic emerging industries.

Authoritative judges [Photo provided by Hengqin New Area Administrative Committee]

The 10 winning project teams will sign cooperation agreements with the Hengqin New Area Administrative Committee if they pass third-party assessment. At stake is a maximum 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) as R&D subsidy to a team, the actual amount based on the state of development and real funding needs, according to the organizing committee.

Other participating teams wishing to locate in Hengqin will be prioritized for settlement at incubators and may apply for talent apartments. Further help in getting founded and active will include free training and management consultations, according to a local official.

The judging panel comprised more than 200 professionals and experts and featured nine renowned specialists reserved for the final stage. They included Dr Sun Yongkui, academician of the American National Academy of Engineering; and Lyu Jian, vice president of City University of Hong Kong and academician of the National Academy of Technologies of France.