As some of you know, Robert Wu Robert Wu is the CEO of Baiguan/Big One lab Baiguan, a Shanghai-based data provider and both Robert and Baiguan have their respective fascinating substacks on China.
Robert, a friend of mine, has also been organizing China tours which has been highlighted in international mainstream media. Below is their latest China tour info and I’m happy to promote it here.
- Zichen
You’re warmly invited to join the 2026 Baiguan China Tour — an immersive, insider journey into the engine rooms of China’s AI, manufacturing, energy, and consumption economy. From closed-door senior management dialogues to on-the-ground audits of smart factories, AI labs, and supply chain hubs, this is where global investors and executives decode the operational realities and strategic inflection points shaping the world’s most dynamic market.
Click to read Reuters coverage of the previous Baiguan China Tour
About the Organizer
BigOne Lab is a data-driven market research and information services company, backed by S&P Global. Founded in 2016, BigOne Lab leverages alternative data to provide clients with insightful, objective, and actionable solutions.
BigOne Lab’s data solutions currently cover more than 10 industries and 200,000+ businesses, spanning hundreds of business metrics, and the clients include 100+ investment funds, sovereign wealth funds, PE/VC investors, leading consulting companies, consumer companies and internet companies, among others.
Building on this foundation, Baiguan is a newsletter service by BigOne Lab that transforms proprietary data and market insights into actionable analysis for a global audience. It now reaches over 17,000+ readers including diplomats, CXOs, investors, scholars, industry experts, and inquisitive minds from 130+ countries.
The Autumn 2026 Baiguan China Tour offers flexible, modular options. You are free to pick whichever items on the menu. The Baiguan team, alongside partner institutions and featured experts, stewards each expedition from initial design and curation to on-the-ground execution, delivering continuous, end-to-end accompaniment.
BAIGUAN CHINA TOUR MENU — AUTUMN 2026
Important note
To ensure the quality of our cohorts, all of our tours are application-only. Please contact us to submit your application.
Weekday Industry Tracks
Robotics & AI Executive Tour in collab with Caixin Data, Beijing, Oct19-23 (5days)
Advanced Manufacturing, Foshan/Shenzhen, Oct 26-30 (4.5 days)
If you are unable to join us on this autumn series of tours, feel free to email Baiguan_ChinaTour@bigonelab.com with your interests. Baiguan also offers bespoke study tours and board retreat services tailored to your needs.
WHY BAIGUAN CHINA TOUR
Three reasons to join:
Deep-Diving Engagement —the senior management dialogues and on-the-ground audits of smart factories, AI labs, and supply chain hubs.
Unfiltered Access & Context — we strip away PR to reveal ground truth and what’s left unsaid.
High-Quality Community — small, selective groups of global investors and executives for peer learning and lasting connections.
Some of the past participants of the Baiguan China Tour include:
Founder of one of Germany’s most successful technology companies
Head of corporate venture capital at a major US industrial company
Singapore-based Chief Investment Officer at a large family office
American investing family rooted in China and early backer of Alibaba
Research Analyst at a top Europe-based hedge fund
Former Senior Researcher at a leading high-frequency trading house
Member of a prominent Latin American business family and entrepreneur
Former board director of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Silicon Valley venture investor in the fintech field
Influential Thai family member with years of experience across VC, PE, and investment banking in Southeast Asia
Malaysian Founder of a multi-billion Asia-based investment fund
Senior Engineer at a major US Mag7 company
Former APAC Payments Analytics Lead at a major global payment company
Singapore-based private Investor with years of experience and ongoing interest in China’s capital markets
Business Consultant to Fortune 500 company
Researcher at an Australia-based long-only investment fund
Disclaimer
Note: All itineraries are tentative and subject to adjustment. The finalized schedule will be issued one week prior to departure.
Moreover, the planned visit is subject to force majeure factors including geopolitical conditions and security considerations, and we cannot guarantee that all of them will take place as scheduled. Our team will work very hard to prepare back-up plans of equivalent value for planned visits, but there is no guarantee.
Weekday Industry Tracks
Photos from past Baiguan China Tours
🤖 Robotics & AI Executive Tour | Oct 19-23 | Beijing
Curated by Baiguan and Caixin Data, this tour cuts through the noise to take you deep into the industrial value chain—from mass-production lines for core hardware and R&D hubs for foundational models to the frontlines of national standard-setting and advanced application testing. Rather than assessing technologies in isolation, we help you decode the underlying infrastructure and economic logic driving this transformation, equipping you with the hard-edged judgment needed to distinguish where capital is truly flowing from where the headlines merely suggest.
A key highlight of this tour that you won’t easily find anywhere else is that, leveraging Caixin’s deep network, tour participants can have closed-door meetings with C-level executives and founding team members of AI and robotics enterprises, including Moonshot (Kimi) and Zhipu AI (GLM). Beyond AI and robotics, participants can also enjoy a rare glimpse into China’s commercial space industry.
Core Highlights
Foundation Models & Cloud Infrastructure:
Moonshot AI (Kimi) & Zhipu AI (GLM): Closed-door strategy session with senior management of two of China’s most consequential foundation-model players.
Volcengine (ByteDance) & Tencent Cloud: Benchmark the tech stacks fueling China’s AI surge with divisional leaders from the country’s two most consequential cloud powers: Volcano Engine, the fast-rising inference-and-MaaS backbone behind Doubao and the default AI cloud for ByteDance’s private-market juggernaut, and Tencent Cloud, the top IaaS/PaaS incumbent.
Embodied Intelligence & Hardware Scale-Up:
Galbot: Debrief with the C-levels of the industry leader in wheeled dual-arm humanoids. Discuss their “Embodied Brain” roadmap and securing thousands of pre-orders from CATL, Bosch, and Toyota.
Linkerbot: Examine the “hands” of the robot revolution. Visit the startup claiming >80% market share in high-DOF dexterous hands and witness their mass production scaling from 10k units shipped in 2025 to 4k units in a single month (April 2026).
Noetix Robotics: Debrief with the founding team on corporate strategy and the bipedal–bionic dual-product matrix, followed by a deep dive into multi-base capacity expansion and scaled delivery.
Future Mobility & Space Commercialization:
Yizhuang L4 Autonomous Driving Demo Zone: Experience a live Robotaxi ride in China’s most advanced driverless zone. Participate in a closed-door discussion on the “Vehicle-Road-Cloud” integration architecture.
CAS Space & Galactic Energy: Site visits to China’s leading mixed-ownership commercial space firms. Review solid/ reusable rocket technologies and the suborbital space tourism commercialization prospects.
National Strategy & Industrial Ecosystem:
Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center: Understand national standardization efforts (led by Xiaomi, Jingcheng Machinery Electric, & UBTech) and the fast-track policy for foreign investment in embodied AI.
Yizhuang Robotics Park: Explore a ~250,000 sqm industrial hub. Unlock end-to-end foreign JV landing services, IP localization, tax incentives, and ecosystem synergy with 300+ firms.
Photos from past Baiguan China Tours
⚙️ Advanced Manufacturing & Supply Chain Tour | Oct 26-30 | Foshan → Shenzhen
This journey reveals Chinese manufacturing not as a static cost center, but a dynamic engine of reinvention. From Foshan’s industrial titans to Shenzhen’s deep-tech disruptors, we trace how legacy giants and frontier startups share the same supply chain soil—driving the national “New Quality Productivity” agenda across smart home appliances, biotech, humanoid robots, and AI. This is not a site visit to assembly lines; it is an investigation into the strategy that allows China to scale from home appliances to humanoid robots with unmatched speed.
This tour is uniquely curated by Family Office Insight, the same partner in our very first, and highly successful Baiguan China Tour last year.
Core Highlights
Foshan: The Legacy Giant’s Reinvention
Midea Group HQ (300.HK): Deep dive into one of China’s most globally successful appliance makers. Beyond the showroom, we dissect Midea’s transformation into an industrial AI and building-tech conglomerate—from robotic arms and HVAC intelligence to overseas M&A strategy—via a closed-door exchange with senior management.
Haitian Flavoring Factory (3288.HK): A rare look inside the world’s largest condiment plant. Observe how a century-old FMCG brand runs fully automated bottling, AGV logistics, and digital twin production—a masterclass in scaling traditional manufacturing.
HeYou International Hospital – Proton Center: Visit a privately funded, top-tier medical infrastructure project backed by Midea’s founder. Understand how Chinese industrial capital is flowing into high-end healthcare and what “manufacturing-grade precision” means in oncology.
Art & Taste Interlude: A Museum of Art (和美术馆) tour, and a Chateau Mihope wine tasting—designed to show how Guangdong’s industrial bourgeoisie blends craftsmanship, philanthropy, and lifestyle. A Shunde garden restaurant and a Michelin-advisory meal showcase local flavor meets curated Chinese aesthetics.
Shenzhen: Frontier Deep-Tech & Robotics
RoboSense (2498.HK): On-site at the LiDAR leader powering autonomous driving and robotics. We walk the production line to benchmark China’s sensor ecosystem on cost curves and automotive-grade reliability, decoding its competitive moat against global peers.
Huayan Robotics: Formerly Han’s Robot, spun out of Han’s Laser and now HKEX-listed (1021.HK), is a Foshan-based full-stack collaborative-robot maker spanning 3–35 kg cobots, humanoid joint modules, and core motion components for industrial, medical, and logistics automation.
Huawei HarmonyOS Intelligent Driving: Hands-on trial drive at a flagship experience store. Assess Huawei’s “non-car-maker” strategy—how it licenses autonomous driving stacks to automakers and reshapes the EV supply chain without building a single factory.
XtalPi (2228.HK): Tour the quantum-physics + AI drug-design company’s R&D and automated lab. Decode how “silicon-to-molecule” platforms compress R&D cycles from years to months.
Salus Bio: Visit a 2020 Shenzhen-born deep-tech pioneer developing fully domestic gene sequencers (Salus Pro / Saluseq Nimbo), sub-micron spatial-omics platforms, and gene chips. By breaking Illumina’s long-standing monopoly on upstream tools, it enables broad applications across clinical diagnostics, precision oncology, and agricultural genomics.
Yiyuan Longevity Tech: Experience hyperbaric oxygen capsule manufacturing—where wellness, aging, and industrial design converge in a Shenzhen-style garage factory.
Shenzhen Ecosystem Immersion
Huaqiangbei: A guided “component safari” through the world’s densest electronics bazaar. See how prototype-to-mass-production happens in 72 hours, and why this matters for hardware startups globally.
Huaqiangbei
Pricing and Important Details
To maintain the quality of dialogue and ensure meaningful interactions among investors and industry leaders, participation is by application only (Please contact us to submit your application.), with each tour limited to 20 seats.
Pricing & Discounts
Each tour offers two pricing tiers:
Standard Rate
Returnee Discount: 20% off -Available for previous Baiguan tour participants
Discount Policies:
Returnee discount is calculated on the Standard Rate (incl. accomodation).
Multi-Tour Savings: Register for two or more tours to save even more. This deduction applies to your post-Early Bird or post-Returnee total:
Total < $10,000 USD → Deduct $500 USD
Total $10,000–$20,000 USD → Deduct $1,000 USD
Total $20,000–$30,000 USD → Deduct $2,000 USD
Total $30,000–$40,000 USD → Deduct $3,000 USD
Total >$40,000 USD → Deduct $4,000 USD
Illustrative Example:
Scenario: You are a Returnee registering for two tours during the Early Bird window.
Base Discount: Two tours at standard rate (2,500+ 15000 = $17,500). We apply your 20% Returnee discount: $17,500* ( 1 - 20% ) = $14,000
Multi-Tour Credit: Your adjusted total qualifies for a $1,000 deduction.
Final Fee: $14,000 - $1000 = $13,000
What’s Included:
Five-star Hotels (eg., Sheraton, Westin, InterContinental) or character-filled equivalent stays on weekend immersion to enhance the local experience (if you select the accommodation-inclusive package)
Travel insurance
All scheduled company visits and seminars
All breakfast, lunch and some dinners
All ground transportation during the tour
What’s Not Included:
International/domestic flights to/from the destination city
Chinese visa application fees
Personal expenses
Certain dinners are not included in the standard program and will be clearly marked in the final detailed itinerary.
English Service: All programming is designed for international professionals. The Baiguan team and most guest speakers are fully bilingual. We further deploy supplemental translation methods to bridge any linguistic gaps, ensuring seamless, English-native fluency at all times.
Accommodation Arrangements for Weekday Tracks: Please note that all group assemblies and dismissals will occur exclusively at our pre-booked hotels or official itinerary venues. If you opt to arrange your own accommodation, you are responsible for ensuring punctual arrival at these meeting points. Failure to do so may result in missed site visits, and you will be responsible for any additional transportation costs or forfeited program segments.
Applications, Refunds & Cancellations
Cancel ≥30 days prior to the tour start date: Full Refund
Cancel between 15~30 days (inclusive of Day 15) before the tour start date: 50% Refund
Cancel <15 days before the start date (any reason, including visa issues): No Refund
All time references shall be based on China Standard Time (Beijing Time, GMT+8)
Requests must be sent in writing to Baiguan_ChinaTour@bigonelab.com
Refunds will be processed minus a non-refundable administrative/service fee, the exact amount of which is subject to the applicable payment platform’s charges.
What to expect next:
Upon reviewing your application, we will notify you of the outcome within 3 business days. If accepted, we will contact you to arrange payment and discuss next steps.
We understand that emails can sometimes end up in your spam folder. If you don’t hear from us within 3 business days, please check your spam folder.
Once your payment is processed, your seat will be officially secured. We will follow up with an email to gather additional details to enhance your experience, such as arrival information, dietary restrictions, or any special accommodation needs.
About one week before the program begins, we will reach out with the exact daily schedules, meeting spots, and an introductory brochure about the companies we will be visiting. We will also create a designated WeChat group for participants and invite you to join.
To apply, please click or scan to fill out this form: Baiguan China Tour Application Form - Autumn 2026
