Research and talent
New plants need people who can run, maintain and improve them. Shenzhen's ties with the region are therefore extending beyond production lines into laboratories and classrooms.
As of March 2026, BGI Group, a Shenzhen-based life science and genomics organization, had jointly trained students with more than 80 universities at home and abroad, including Chulalongkorn University and Mahidol University in Thailand, the University of Indonesia and the University of Malaya. These programs involved 4,490 students in total, 2,503 of them at master's or doctoral level.
Such training is tied to research. With Chulalongkorn University, BGI is working on population aging, gut microbiome studies and thalassemia. In Indonesia, BGI signed an agreement in September 2026 with the health ministry's center for biomedical and health genomics to support the Biomedical and Genome Science Initiative, the country's first national genome program, covering joint research, platform development and local training.
BGI describes its approach as "using projects to build disciplines, industries and talent." Since 2018, BGI has run 13 national-level training programs for more than 360 mid- and senior-level biotech professionals from Belt and Road partner countries, almost 60 percent of them from APEC members, and several alumni have become senior public health officials at home, the company said.
