By Sonny Lo Shiu Hing
The Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone represents a groundbreaking cross-boundary hub for science and technology
It aims to strengthen innovation exchanges between Hong Kong and Shenzhen while fostering international collaboration and investment
On December 22, 2025, when an opening ceremony of the Hong Kong side of the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone was held, this cross-boundary innovation hub represented an unprecedented and special developmental zone within the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The zone marks the establishment of a unique science and technology hub within the HKSAR, utilising mainland talents and enterprises across the boundary and strengthening innovative exchanges between Hong Kong and Shenzhen.
During the opening ceremony, Chief Executive John Lee said that the Cooperation Zone would open the area’s transportation network, promote the exchange of mainland science and technology talents with Hong Kong’s counterparts, and consolidate the innovative connections between the HKSAR and Shenzhen.
A bridge has begun its construction linking the technology parks in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. It will serve, according to John Lee, as “a landmark symbol for the ‘one zone, two parks’ vision, connecting the Greater Bay Area’s innovation pulse” (South China Morning Post, December 23, 2025, p. A1). The bridge is technologically, socially, and economically significant because it will connect the Shenzhen Technology Park with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Park (HKITP), which is called the Hong Kong park.
The bridge’s cost will be shared between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and it is expected to be completed in 2027.
The opening ceremony witnessed the attendance of the deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, Xu Qifang, and the director of the Hong Kong Liaison Office, Zhou Ji. Shenzhen city’s deputy mayor, Luo Huanghao, also participated in the landmark event.
Shortly after John Lee’s duty visit to Beijing, where President Xi Jinping asked the HKSAR to align its developmental plan with the nation’s 15th Five-Year Plan, the opening of the Hong Kong side of the Innovation Cooperation Zone is politically significant, as it represents how the HKSAR’s science and technology development is capitalising on the advantages of science and technology expertise and knowledge in Shenzhen, and how Hong Kong’s science and technology policy is facilitating the joint research efforts of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. In fact, Xu Qifang said at the opening ceremony that the park’s development belongs to the national developmental strategy promoted by President Xi.
During President Xi’s visit to Guangdong in November, when he inaugurated the opening of the National Games, he also mentioned the need for the cities in the Greater Bay Area to cooperate in the areas of technological innovation, infrastructure networks, market integration, and the “soft connectiveness” of rules and mechanisms.
Xu Qifang echoed the Chinese President’s remarks by emphasising the importance of Hong Kong strengthening both “soft” and “hard” connectivity. He also remarked that Hong Kong should consolidate relations with other mainland zones like Qianhai and Nansha to propel the further development of the industrial supply chain and to enhance the competitiveness of science and technology innovation, creating a win-win scenario in the Greater Bay Area.
The Innovation Cooperation Zone attracted overseas enterprises. More than sixty overseas, mainland, and Hong Kong enterprises signed leases for the two wet laboratory complexes located at the Hong Kong park, enhancing the occupancy rate to almost eighty per cent. The remaining five blocks of buildings will be completed in 2027, which falls into the first stage of science and technology development. The second phase’s planning has just been finalised. The total area covering the two phases of development will occupy two million square metres – an expansion of seventy per cent from the Hong Kong government’s initial plan.
The Hong Kong park is expected to cover life and health technology development, artificial intelligence, and data science. Mr John Lee revealed that the objective of the park is to propel orderly development, consolidate the innovation and technology value chain, and foster cross-boundary and/or cross-border synergy across upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors.
Apart from the development of the Hong Kong park and its connectivity with Shenzhen, the San Tin Technopole is expected to be developed at a much faster pace for the sake of attracting more business investment and providing additional support for Hetao.
At a time when the mainland authorities are emphasising the significance of developing “new quality productive forces,” the Hong Kong leadership has started to explore how such “new quality productive forces” can be advanced further by adopting a new science and technology innovation policy, cooperating with Shenzhen in a more intensive manner, and tapping into the immense expertise and potential of mainland science and technology enterprises.
In fact, it has taken eight years for the Hong Kong park to be established since an agreement with Shenzhen was signed in 2017 to develop the joint science and technology park. Critics said that it took too long for the HKSAR to develop its science and technology policy (see Editorial, Ming Pao, December 23, 2025, p. A2). The Shenzhen side of Hetao has seen more rapid development, but the Hong Kong side has been developing slowly.
In September 2025, the Hetao Institute of Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences, established by renowned Chinese-American mathematician Yau Shing-tung, was inaugurated (Hong Kong Standard, September 10, 2025). The Institute is located at the Shenzhen park and specialises in applied mathematics research. Yau highlighted that the Institute had already recruited seventeen top talents and that it plans to expand the research team members to fifty or sixty by the end of 2025.
More Hong Kong universities are expected to move to university campuses in the Northern Metropolis
Despite the construction of the bridge linking the two sides of the science and technology parks, some details remain to be hammered out, including whether immigration and customs will adopt a single co-location checkpoint or two different customs checkpoints (Ming Pao, December 23, 2025, p. A2). It was reported that a new idea of adopting “a white list” will be used, meaning that mainland science and technology experts will have their names registered and will be allowed to cross the bridge and enter the Hong Kong park easily.
Sun Dong, the Secretary for Innovation, Technology, and Industry, said that the flows of talents, goods, and scientific data are now achieving good progress, and that both Hong Kong and Shenzhen had reached “a basic consensus” on the logistics arrangements for cross-boundary biological samples from the mainland to Hong Kong. Obviously, the details of technical, scientific, and technological operations will have to be formulated and implemented meticulously to ensure smoothness and success in cross-boundary science and technology innovation and collaboration.
Other details will need to be discussed, including the number of post-doctoral researchers and scientists who will work in the Hong Kong park, and the related issue of intellectual property rights of innovative products. In other words, both Hong Kong and Shenzhen will have to fully utilise the comparative advantages of “one park, two districts.”
Sun Dong told the media that a more imperative issue is to ensure that the Hong Kong park’s development in the first stage will have enough financial resources (Oriental Daily, December 21, 2025). He revealed that HK$200 billion will be required if the rest of the Hong Kong park is to be completed, and that the government cannot sustain such a huge amount of investment. As such, private-sector investment will be necessary. The government has received twenty-seven proposals from the private sector, meaning that public-private partnerships will be necessary for the smooth completion of stage one of the development of the Hong Kong park.
As early as June 2025, Sun Dong told the media that software and hardware would have to work together for the tech zone to be successful. He said: “By software, I mean how we can create a favourable business, scientific research, and exchange environment so that top talent and businesses would be willing to move to Hetao” (Hong Kong Standard, June 26, 2025).
Some overseas enterprises have expressed deep interest in investing in the Hong Kong park. An executive of the Swiss company Spirecut, Frederic Schuind, said that he hoped to use the base in the Hong Kong park to enter the large market of Asia (Ming Pao, December 23, 2025, p. A2). It was reported that one-fourth of the sixty companies in the Hong Kong park are from overseas countries and that they are deeply interested in entering not only the mainland market but also the Asian one.
The Hong Kong park is expected to provide tremendous and precious research opportunities for the doctoral and post-doctoral researchers produced by local universities. They will have immense opportunities to work with and learn from mainland science and technology experts, generating a win-win situation in the exchange of high-tech talents from both Hong Kong and the mainland. They will also benefit from the expertise and knowledge of foreign companies that have investments and operations in the Hong Kong park.
The talent dormitory in the Hong Kong park has witnessed the entry and residence of some talents and employees of the science and technology enterprises. A few restaurants have been opened in one of the residential buildings. It can be anticipated that when the Hong Kong park is developed further, more residents from the mainland, overseas, and Hong Kong will be seen.
In November 2025, Kevin Choi Kit-ming, the Permanent Secretary for Innovation, Technology, and Industry, referred to the Hong Kong park as a “special zone within the special administrative region” of Hong Kong (Hong Kong Standard, November 10, 2025).
He revealed that a German pharmaceutical company would establish its company in the Greater Bay Area by leveraging Hong Kong’s international medical standards, while a Beijing-based AI company was using Hong Kong’s blockchain technology to connect with the market in Australia. Choi unveiled that the Hong Kong government had already allocated HK$24 billion for the initial phase of the park’s infrastructure and public facilities, apart from an indirect investment of HK$14.3 billion for the road and infrastructure network that connects the Hong Kong park with Hetao.
In December, when the Hong Kong park was opened, the new arrivals included a Xiamen sodium-ion battery producer, Hithium Energy Storage Technology, whose shipment was ranked second globally. Its co-founder Wang Pengcheng commented: “After more than a year of evaluation, we firmly chose Hong Kong as our base, as it perfectly integrates international resources for R&D within the industrial strengths of the mainland” (Hong Kong Standard, December 23, 2025). A Shenzhen-based surgical robot company named Yuanhua Tech also decided to open a second headquarters in the zone, bringing its medical devices into local hospitals and trying to expand overseas orders for its facilities. Mainland companies have been grasping the tremendous business opportunities through the Hong Kong park, thereby strengthening the role of the HKSAR as a “super-connector.”
It can be recalled that in February, Xia Baolong, the director of the HKMAO, visited the Hong Kong park in Hetao, listening to Hong Kong officials, such as Acting Chief Secretary Eric Chan and Financial Secretary Paul Chan, for their reports on the development of the park and the Northern Metropolis. Since then, the Hong Kong government has been accelerating developmental work in the Hong Kong park. As such, the opening ceremony of the Hong Kong park in December 2025 was a governmental response to Xia’s aspiration and a report card on how the HKSAR government has been accelerating not only its science and technology policy but also its genuine efforts at integration with the Greater Bay Area.
The further development of the Hong Kong park and the Hetao area will hinge on three factors. First, the way in which private sector investment is fostered and sustained will shape the Hong Kong park’s completion in its first phase of development and also its future expansion. Second, the new Legislative Council will need to quickly scrutinise and approve government-initiated bills that will build up the important transport infrastructure surrounding the Hetao area. In other words, the development of the Northern Metropolis is part of the further expansion of the Hong Kong park. Third, the San Tin Technopole, located south of the Hong Kong park, will also have to be accelerated in its construction and development.
In comparison with the Guangdong-Macau In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone in Hetao has some differences and similarities. First, the In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin is developing rapidly, with many Macau residents moving there to live. Nevertheless, the Hong Kong park in Hetao is located within the HKSAR.
The development of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone in Hetao signals the deeper and faster integration of the HKSAR into not only Shenzhen but also the Greater Bay Area
While the Hong Kong park is a special developmental zone within the HKSAR, the entry of mainland science and technology experts is facilitated by administrative measures. Second, the Hong Kong park tends to focus on science and technology development, while the In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin tends to focus on the four key areas of Macau’s economic diversification away from its overdependence on the gaming industry, namely Chinese medicine, convention and exhibition centres, science and technology research, and modern financial services.
The focus of the two special zones within the two special administrative regions has shown a commonality: it emphasises the development of science and technology, but the areas of development in the Macau-Hengqin In-Depth Cooperation Zone tend to be much broader. Third, private-sector investment is vital to the success of both zones, and thereby public-private partnerships are needed for their smooth development. Fourth, both special zones envisage the necessary governmental leadership of the two special administrative regions, and they belong to an indispensable part of aligning the two cities’ developmental plans with the nation’s Five-Year Plan from now on.
The role of the government is critical to the success of the two special zones in the cases of Hong Kong and Macau, one within the HKSAR and the other cutting across the boundary with Hengqin, respectively.
In conclusion, the development of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone in Hetao has achieved a breakthrough since its opening ceremony in December 2025. It signals the deeper and faster integration of the HKSAR into not only Shenzhen but also the Greater Bay Area. It also demonstrates the significant role of Hong Kong as a super-connector, playing the role of a bridge between mainland enterprises and their overseas markets on the one hand, and between overseas companies and their mainland and Asian markets on the other.
Once some mainland enterprises have established their footholds in the Hong Kong park of Hetao, their research collaboration and exchange with the Hong Kong side will be facilitated and fostered, driving the further development of Hong Kong’s science and technology innovation. More Hong Kong universities are expected to move to university campuses in the Northern Metropolis in the coming years, providing further support to the development of not only the Hong Kong park of Hetao but also the Shenzhen park of Hetao, leading to a win-win situation in the co-development of science and technology in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen. As such, the foundation of Hong Kong’s faster and deeper integration into the Greater Bay Area, including the alignment of its developmental plan with the nation’s Five-Year Plan, is firmly entrenched.
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