On Feb. 27, 2025, industry professionals gather at DEEP Robotics in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, for a firsthand look at the company's quadruped robot dogs and other products. [Photo by Wang Gang/China News Service]

The large-scale model DeepSeek-V3, trained with relatively modest computing power and a limited number of GPU (graphics processing unit) chips, has sparked global discussion. A new generation of intelligent bionic hands can be fitted in just 30 seconds, restoring the ability for people with disabilities to write and play the piano. Quadruped robot dogs capable of stable operation in extreme environments have already been deployed in Singapore's power tunnels. Since the beginning of 2025, technological innovations led by six Hangzhou-based startups, namely DeepSeek, Game Science, Unitree, DEEP Robotics, BrainCo and ManyCore — dubbed the city's "Six Little Dragons" — have quickly drawn global attention to Hangzhou.

How has this millennia-old ancient capital become a "new highland" for future industry development?

Pioneering future industries

On October 22, 2023, at the opening ceremony of the fourth Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, Chinese swimmer Xu Jialing firmly held the torch with the aid of an intelligent bionic hand and successfully lit the cauldron, as the mascot Feifei and the audience watched.

The bionic hand worn by Xu Jialing was produced by BrainCo, one of the "Six Little Dragons." It is a sophisticated system powered by the deep integration of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. BCI, a leading frontier in human-computer interaction, is not only a major focus of global scientific research but also ranked among China's top 10 iconic future industry products.

This memorable moment, which beautifully blended technology with humanity, originated from an overseas visit five years earlier, when a delegation from the Hangzhou Future Sci-Tech City traveled to Boston, the U.S., to meet BrainCo's founder Han Bicheng and his team.

At that time, BCI technology was still little known in China, with public awareness and corporate participation at a very early stage.