Chinese technology companies, including Huawei Technologies and Unitree Robotics, are drawing significant attention at one of Europe’s largest tech exhibitions in Paris this week. This heightened visibility reflects Beijing’s commitment to deepen scientific and technological cooperation with France amid growing tensions with the United States.
At the China Pavilion of the VivaTech trade show on Thursday, Deng Li, China’s ambassador to France, emphasized Beijing’s dedication to “open cooperation” and “peaceful development” in global technology. He affirmed China’s readiness to collaborate with France to boost scientific and technological exchanges.
Organized by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, the China Pavilion features cutting-edge innovations such as a humanoid robot and a robotic dog from Hangzhou-based start-up Unitree Robotics. The company has become a symbol of China’s advancements in robotics technology. According to a Unitree representative, Europe is the company’s third-largest market after China and the US. Unitree has sold thousands of its G1 humanoid robots and hundreds of its B2 industrial robot dogs worldwide.
Zhang Min, Unitree’s European market director, highlighted that their robots can be programmed by customers to perform challenging tasks, particularly in sectors involving “boring, dangerous, and dirty work.”
Huawei, another major exhibitor at the China Pavilion, has a smaller footprint at this year’s VivaTech compared to last year when it hosted its own booth. This year, Huawei showcased connectivity solutions, cloud-computing products, and consumer devices such as smartwatches and earbuds. However, its smartphone business remains limited globally due to ongoing US sanctions restricting access to Google services.
Making its first appearance at VivaTech, Tencent Cloud—a division of social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings—displayed audio and video delivery solutions and its “Super-App-as-a-Service” platform. This service allows enterprises to build mini-app ecosystems within larger applications. In a notable partnership, French telecom giant Orange’s Middle East and Africa division collaborated with Tencent Cloud last year to develop mini-apps for its super-app Max, targeting a doubling of user adoption this year.
The expansion of Chinese tech firms in Europe unfolds amid escalating Sino-US trade tensions and the broader trade conflicts initiated by former US President Donald Trump.
The theme of technological sovereignty resonated strongly at VivaTech. French start-up Middl.AI, which offers servers enabling AI devices to compute locally rather than relying on cloud services, promotes its fully proprietary technology free from US operating systems and infrastructure. Norbert Ducrot, Middl.AI’s founder and CEO, underscored the importance of sovereignty in today’s geopolitical climate, warning that reliance on American networks and data centers could pose risks if access is restricted.
Chinese tech companies are aggressively competing with US firms as the ongoing trade war threatens to deepen divisions between Washington and Europe. Dowson Tong, CEO of Tencent Cloud and Smart Industries Group, stressed the value of having alternatives in the tech market. “It’s important to have competition, which ultimately benefits users and customers,” he said during a panel discussion.
This growing presence of Chinese tech at VivaTech illustrates a strategic pivot toward European collaboration and a push to diversify global technology partnerships in an increasingly fragmented world.
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