ChinaEU President Luigi Gambardella Receives Guangdong Friendship Award
The recognition comes from China’s largest provincial economy at the heart of the Greater Bay Area and home to Shenzhen, a global hub for AI, robotics and advanced manufacturing. For European companies, the region is opening new opportunities for industrial partnerships.
Luigi Gambardella, President of ChinaEU, has received the Guangdong Friendship Award, a provincial honour recognising international experts who have made significant contributions to Guangdong’s economic and social development and international exchanges.
The ceremony for the second edition of the award was held in Guangzhou on 29 September 2026. For Gambardella, the recognition reflects more than a decade of work building connections between the European and Chinese technology communities, with a particularly close relationship with Shenzhen.
“Receiving this recognition from Guangdong is a great honour, but above all an encouragement to continue the work that began many years ago,” Gambardella said. “I am deeply grateful to my friends across Guangdong, espeically Shenzhen, for the friendship and support over the years. I have witnessed the extraordinary transformation of this region, and I am convinced that dialogue and cooperation between Europe and China are more important today than ever.”
Guangdong and Shenzhen at the heart of the Greater Bay Area
The significance of the award also reflects the economic weight of the region presenting it. Guangdong is China’s largest provincial economy and the industrial heart of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which brings together Hong Kong, Macao and nine Guangdong cities, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Foshan.
Within the Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen has emerged as one of its most important technology engines. In 2025, the city’s GDP reached approximately RMB 3.87 trillion, while strategic emerging industries accounted for more than two-fifths of its economy.
The scale of its technology base is equally significant. Shenzhen alone is home to around 2,800 AI-related companies and more than 1,000 core robotics companies, surrounded by a much broader supply chain of component manufacturers, sensor companies, control-system specialists, software developers and systems integrators.
What makes Shenzhen distinctive is not simply the number of technology companies, but the proximity of research, engineering and manufacturing. Telecommunications, electronics, electric vehicles, batteries, drones, AI and robotics coexist within a highly integrated industrial environment.
For more than a decade, Gambardella has worked through ChinaEU to connect this technology community with Europe, initially in telecommunications and digital technologies and increasingly in AI, robotics and advanced industrial applications.
“Shenzhen demonstrates something very important,” Gambardella said. “Inventing a technology is not enough. You also need to turn it into a product, industrialise it and bring it to market.”
From AI to Physical AI
The next frontier is Physical AI: artificial intelligence moving beyond screens and software and into machines capable of perceiving, deciding and acting in the physical world.
Humanoid robots, intelligent industrial automation, autonomous logistics and AI-powered machines are beginning to reshape manufacturing and services.
Shenzhen is particularly well positioned for this transition because robot manufacturers, sensor companies, electronics suppliers, AI developers and industrial production capabilities are concentrated within the same region. In 2025, Shenzhen produced approximately 194,900 industrial robots, more than a quarter of China’s total output.
This shift is highly relevant to Europe, where advanced manufacturing remains a major economic strength.
New opportunities for European companies
Europe and Guangdong bring different but potentially complementary strengths. Shenzhen offers technology, hardware engineering, integrated supply chains and rapid industrialisation. Europe brings world-class capabilities in advanced manufacturing, mechanical engineering, automation, industrial software, system integration and specialised applications.
“I see significant business opportunities for European companies,” Gambardella said. “European companies should not look at Shenzhen simply as a technology supplier, but as a potential industrial partner. They can integrate Chinese technologies into European industrial solutions, jointly develop new products and bring them to European and global markets, while also using Shenzhen and the Greater Bay Area as a platform for expanding in China and across Asia.”
The opportunity therefore goes well beyond sourcing technology from China. It lies in combining European industrial know-how, system integration and market access with Shenzhen’s capabilities in robotics, AI, electronics and rapid industrialisation.
This approach is already moving from dialogue to practical cooperation. A new ChinaEU industrial mission to Shenzhen is planned for 23–27 November 2026, focusing on AI, robotics and Physical AI. The mission will bring European companies into direct contact with Chinese technology manufacturers to identify industrial applications, potential partnerships and pilot projects.
The aim is to build industrial partnerships in which Chinese technology and European engineering, integration and manufacturing expertise can create new products, applications and markets.
More dialogue in the age of AI
The award comes at a time when Europe-China relations are also shaped by trade tensions, economic security concerns and growing technological competition. For Gambardella, that makes dialogue more important rather than less.
“Technology has always advanced through connections between people, ideas and cultures. Differences and competition are real, but without communication it becomes much harder to find solutions and build opportunities for cooperation.”
The Guangdong Friendship Award therefore carries a significance that extends beyond personal recognition. For Europe, understanding what is happening in Shenzhen today also means gaining an early view of a major industrial shift: the transition of artificial intelligence from software into factories, machines and robots and the new business models that will emerge around it.
