China’s ‘little giants’ are its latest weapon in the US tech war

The ‘little giants’ programme has been around for more than a decade, but it has taken on new prominence after Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown against leading companies like Alibaba and Tencent. — Bloomberg

In today’s China, behemoths like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd are out of favour, but “little giants” are on the rise.

That’s the designation for a new generation of startups that have been selected under an ambitious government program aimed at fostering a technology industry that can compete with Silicon Valley. These often-obscure companies have demonstrated they’re doing something innovative and unique, and they’re targeting strategically important sectors like robotics, quantum computing and semiconductors.