Roland Berger: Foreign firms should invest in China's tech R&D

It is quite critical for foreign companies to continue to invest in technological research and development in China, and there will be a lot of scientific discoveries and disruptions coming into innovation, said Denis Depoux, global managing director of Roland Berger.

Noting that China is accelerating steps to bolster the development of new quality productive forces, Depoux said, "What China needs is productivity, and that productivity comes from industry because that's a big chunk of the GDP of China," adding the productivity is driven by innovation, automation and globalization.

"What Chinese companies are super good at is usually adopting technology and making it practical," he noted.

He made the remarks in an interview with China Daily at the ongoing China Development Forum 2025, which kicked off on Sunday in Beijing.

China has set its GDP growth target at around 5 percent for 2025. Depoux said, "The 5 percent objective is quite ambitious, like it was last year. It was fulfilled last year. So that gives some confidence because the Chinese economy is resilient. But it needs new drivers, new engines."

These new growth engines come from China's continued efforts in bolstering technological innovation. He said people now realize that there's so much innovation in China, and it's quite critical for multinational corporations to invest in research and development, and technology here.

Chinese AI DeepSeek has been a buzzword and surprised the world starting this year. Depoux said AI is progressing very fast here, and DeepSeek is just one example as there will be another "DeepSeek" on the road.

China has made rapid progress in the development of AI technology, becoming one of the global leaders, and the pace will further accelerate. AI will unlock massive opportunities for our business, he said.

He also said that all or most of the large language models of China are open-source. So basically everybody can use them, including foreign companies, and he thinks that's contributing a lot to the growth of global AI industry.