As one of the top Chinese VCs, Sinovation Ventures, pulled out from the United States amid trade disputes, it’s setting up a new company focusing on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in South China’s Guangdong Province, corporate registration records show.
Sinovation Ventures recently invested RMB 5 million (USD 700,000) to set up a subsidiary in Guangzhou. The subsidiary, Sinovation Ventures (Guangzhou) Artificial Intelligence Research, was registered on May 23 and is listed as a leasing and business service.
The new company is an “extension” of Sinovation Ventures AI Institute, Sinovation Ventures told KrASIA. Sinovation Ventures AI Institute currently focuses on AI in healthcare, education, and robotics at its Beijing headquarter and has a branch in Nanjing which specializes in machine learning and computational finance.
It’s not immediately clear what research fields the new Guangzhou branch will be focusing on, but the city itself is the center of China’s manufacturing heartland, the Pearl River Delta.
Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong, is a very popular destination for AI start-ups. In 2018 alone, 339 AI companies registered in Guangzhou, according to the local government.
Sinovation Ventures, set up by Google’s former China boss Kai-Fu Lee in 2009, announced last year that it would set up an RMB 2.5 billion (USD 391 million) fund in Guangzhou helping the city to develop its homegrown AI industry.