There are two kinds of innovation. Mind-blowing, leading-edge innovation like ChatGPT, Nvidia, and SpaceX, and efficient, fast-follower innovation like DeepSeek, Xiaomi, and Landspace.

America and the west have a well-deserved reputation for tech inventions that shatter the status quo and herald the dawn of a new paradigm. Like electricity, the telephone, the assembly line, the personal computer, the internet, GPS, the iPhone, and many, many more.

We’re not just talking electronics and gadgets here. Think lasers, lidar, fracking, even quadcopter drones. And lithium-ion and LFP batteries. Just to name a few.

But increasingly it’s not the originator of a new technological revolution that powers ahead, leads the commercialization and ultimately dominates the space. Just like DJI did with drones, Chinese companies are dominating electric cars, solar and batteries, phones and routers, power tools, and heavy engineering equipment.

They have become experts at understanding and re-engineering technologies, rather than just copying products. And they do it with scale and efficiency in mind, creating value through innovative designs and manufacturing techniques. Lowering cost by several orders of magnitude, while still delivering high quality products and services has become a Chinese science, and their supreme competitive advantage.

Now, if you want to peer into the future, and see which way the technological winds are blowing, where the latest breakthrough is headed, and where to place your bets, where to invest your money, don’t research what’s happening in Silicon Valley.

Look to the east. And let China show the way.