Senior executives at some of China's largest technology and investment companies have singled out Dubai as a central platform for the Chinese business community's regional and international growth, describing the emirate as both a meeting point for cross-border partnerships and a gateway for carrying advanced Chinese innovation into global markets.
Their comments come ahead of Dubai Business Forum – China, which Dubai Chambers will stage in Shenzhen on 14 October under the theme "Momentum at Scale: Accelerating Shared Success." The executives are among the event's speakers, and several framed the forum as a chance to identify where trade and investment ties between Dubai and China can be pushed furthest.
A heavyweight speaker line-up
The roster draws on Chinese firms that already have an established footprint in the emirate. It includes BYD, Baidu, Tencent Cloud, Huawei Cloud, iMile Delivery, YTO International, Yalla Group and ARIDGE — formerly XPENG AEROHT — alongside financial institutions CICC and China Merchants Capital.
Between them, the companies span electric vehicles, cloud computing, search and AI, logistics, digital entertainment, urban air mobility and capital markets, giving the programme an unusually wide cross-section of the Chinese corporate landscape.
Huawei Cloud: a bridge between two ecosystems
Alan Qi, President of Huawei Cloud Middle East and Central Asia Region, positioned the company as a connector between the two markets.
"Huawei Cloud is proud to serve as a bridge connecting Chinese and local enterprises, and linking China's ecosystem with the UAE's," he said. "Through AI, we empower the intelligent upgrade of industries across the UAE, and with technical support, experience sharing, and joint market expansion, we help both UAE and Chinese companies go global with confidence. Let's connect, innovate, and grow together."
Qi will join a panel examining the openings created by the AI economy, the agentic cloud infrastructure needed to run AI applications at scale, and Dubai's standing as a centre for innovation, talent and AI-led growth.
Tencent Cloud and the push to commercialise AI
Rachel Xie, General Manager of Tencent Cloud MENA, described Dubai as an important base for the development of Tencent's cloud computing business. She said she intends to share what the company has learned from operating in the emirate and to compare notes with other participants on the opportunities opening up there.
Xie will take part in a discussion on how companies can speed up the adoption and commercial rollout of AI — a session that will also weigh the role Dubai's business ecosystem plays in helping new technologies reach the market faster.
Yalla Group on designing for local users
Jason Hua, Chief Strategy Officer at Yalla Group, the online social networking and gaming company, pointed to the city's convening power.
"Dubai has demonstrated how a global city can bring together diverse markets, cultures, and ideas to create new opportunities worldwide," he said. "We look forward to exchanging perspectives at this year's Dubai Business Forum and exploring how businesses can help shape the next chapter of the region's growth."
Hua's session will cover how companies read and respond to local user needs, how market data shapes product and service design, and how businesses scale within the digital entertainment sector.
From market entry to long-term value
The forum arrives at a point where the calculation behind Chinese overseas expansion is shifting. Companies are moving away from simply entering foreign markets and towards building durable value inside them — a change that demands considerably more than market access alone.
Adapting technology to local requirements, establishing a brand, running local operations and embedding into existing business ecosystems have all become central to the equation. Those themes are set to run through much of the forum's programming.
Turning strategy into operational capability
The agenda places particular weight on how expansion plans translate into working capability and sustainable growth on the ground. Sessions will range across the practical deployment of AI, directing capital towards cross-border growth, developing localised products, building logistics networks and navigating regulatory frameworks.
By assembling companies at markedly different stages of their international journeys — from established multinationals to firms still scaling their overseas operations — the organisers aim to give attendees a spread of practical reference points rather than a single template.
Dubai Business Forum – China 2026 is intended to widen the field of cooperation between the emirate and China across technology, investment, trade and other economic sectors, while serving as a venue for Chinese businesses to compare routes to global growth.
For Dubai, the forum extends a pattern the emirate has worked to establish: positioning itself not merely as a destination for foreign capital but as an operating base from which companies run their wider international businesses. The distinction matters, because the executives speaking in Shenzhen are describing a market where the decision is no longer whether to open an office but how much of the global operation to anchor there. Their experiences — spanning cloud infrastructure, mobility, logistics and digital platforms — offer Chinese firms weighing that question a set of practical reference points drawn from companies that have already made the move.
