Opinion | To succeed, Northern Metropolis should learn from Silicon Valley model

Government guidance must set the stage, top local universities must star in the show and the market ecosystem must be cultivated for support

Reading Time:3 minutes

The Northern Metropolis is Hong Kong’s moon shot project. If successful, it will become more than a new town; it will be Hong Kong’s new economic engine. Photo: Elson Li

Published: 4:15pm, 28 Sep 2025

Hong Kong stands at a pivotal juncture. The opportunities presented by the Greater Bay Area are immense, and the city’s Northern Metropolis is the strategic gateway to realising this potential.

As boldly envisioned in Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s policy address, this project is more than a property development; it is the cornerstone of Hong Kong’s transformation into an international innovation and education hub, critical to fulfilling our role in national strategies.

To succeed, we must look beyond our borders for a proven blueprint. One of the most compelling models comes from the sun-drenched hills of California: Silicon Valley. Its government-seeded, university and industry co-driven ecosystem is the precise formula the Northern Metropolis should adopt and adapt to its context.

Silicon Valley’s success is widely attributed to early US government planning aimed at building a powerful university-industry symbiosis through substantial investment in innovation and technology from the 1950s to the 1980s. For instance, the National Science Foundation was established in 1950 to promote and fund fundamental scientific research, primarily at universities, whereas the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which traces its roots to 1958, invests in high-risk, high-reward research.

Then there is the pivotal 1980 Bayh-Dole Act. It allowed universities, small businesses and non-profit organisations to retain ownership of inventions they made under federal funding, incentivising them to patent and license these technologies to industry.

A supportive policy environment, combined with the proactive role of Stanford University, technological breakthroughs and the emergence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, led to Silicon Valley’s rise. Its genesis was driven by the semiconductor industry, sparked by the convergence of visionary companies like Hewlett-Packard, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory and Fairchild Semiconductor with world-class institutions such as Stanford.

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x