Vision Of The Future

An investigation of Hangzhou, China’s technological epicentre, reveals Bond-like gadgets and sci-fi aspirations

- Craig Bright

Lining the walls of a large, white, circular room are dozens of CCTV cameras, their all-seeing lenses trained on the crowd below. As people walk about, portraits start to appear on mounted TV monitors, along with personal statistics such as height and gender. I see my own face pop into view, along with an estimation of my age, which, to my dismay, is off by about ten years – and not in the flattering direction.

Being displayed on another screen is a veritable army of small orange robots zipping across a post office warehouse. The fully automated bots are using HD cameras and QR codes placed on the floor to move about and sort packages into their correct locations. “When they run out of electricity, they calculate the route they have to take to get to the charging stations and then charge themselves,” my guide explains.

In the middle of the room, sitting a top a white plinth, is a large remote-controlled drone about a metre wide. Next to it is a rifle with what can only be described as a television aerial sticking out from the barrel. According to my guide (who I’m tempted to call “Q” at this point), the aerial gun blocks a drone’s remote radio signal – using jamming equipment used in China’s space technology – thus causing it to fall from the sky.

This is the headquarters of Hikvision, a multinational technology company that has its head office in Hangzhou, the capital of eastern China’s Zhejiang province southwest of Shanghai. While its name may not be as familiar as other tech behemoths like Alibaba or Huawei, the 16-year-old Chinese company is a giant in its own right, with a market capitalisation of more than US$20 billion and a 19.5 percent market share of the global video surveillance industry. The company has more than 20,000 employees worldwide, with its products being utilised all over the world from the Brazil World Cup Stadium to Milan’s Malpensa Airport.