Dassault Systemes' business in China expands

China's economic resilience, underpinned by its swift policy action and rapid technological innovation, is translating into robust confidence among foreign businesses to scale up investment and expand their presence in this critical market, a senior executive told China Daily.

Samson Khaou, executive vice-president of Dassault Systemes, noted that last year marked the twentieth anniversary of the company's operations in China, during which it witnessed a fundamental shift in how the Chinese economy engages with technology.

"Two decades of experience serving the Chinese market taught us that confidence is driven not just by short-term economic cycles, but by the consistency of government policy and the pace of technological upgrading," Khaou said.

He observed that over the past 20 years, Chinese companies have moved from simply adopting technology to actively shaping it. "This gives us strong confidence that innovation is still thriving in China," he added.

Dassault Systemes is not alone. A May survey by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China reinforces this view, with 48 percent of respondents saying that Chinese firms in their industry are more innovative than European counterparts.

With a solid base of 60,000 customers, Khaou said Dassault Systemes has seen strong resilience in how Chinese companies are optimizing operations and using technology to drive innovation and excellence in manufacturing and engineering.

"That resilience, in turn, reinforces the company's confidence to continue investing in China on a global scale," he added.

In April, the company announced plans to build an innovation center in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, to bring advanced technologies to the local small and medium-sized enterprise ecosystem.

"Separately, in 2025, through our collaboration with China Telecom's Tianyi Cloud in Nanjing, we are making Dassault Systemes' SaaS, or software-as-a-service, solutions more accessible to customers in China — part of our continued investment in the market," Khaou said.

He added that the center serves two key purposes: first, to ensure that new technologies developed on the company's platform can be taught and disseminated to SMEs; and second, to build joint ventures in segments where China leads the global market, enabling co-development of technologies that will drive local expansion and eventually serve global markets.

In particular, Khaou noted that China is now "leading artificial intelligence on the global stage". The AI boom, he said, is fostering a new generation of entrepreneurs equipped with deep knowledge of how to harness AI for product and service innovation, a trend becoming increasingly visible in China.

China has issued a plan to deeply integrate AI with the manufacturing sector, spanning large AI models, industrial datasets and application scenarios.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China has built a multi-tiered smart factory ecosystem, which comprised over 35,000 basic-level, more than 8,200 advanced-level, over 500 excellence-level and 15 flagship smart factories nationwide as of 2025.

To better capitalize on the AI trend in China, Dassault Systemes is developing AI models, which combine physical AI with industrial AI, rather than relying on large language models, as part of its latest industrial software solutions, according to Khaou.

Khaou said the company looks forward to enhancing the competitiveness and innovation capabilities of traditional industrial manufacturers, especially for smaller businesses.