China's 'little giants' are its latest weapon in the US tech war

In today’s China, behemoths like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are out of favour, but “little giants” are on the rise.

That’s the designation for a new generation of start-ups that have been selected under an ambitious government program aimed at fostering a technology industry that can compete with Silicon Valley. These often-obscure companies have demonstrated they’re doing something innovative and unique, and they’re targeting strategically important sectors like robotics, quantum computing and semiconductors.

Wu Gansha won the little giants title for his autonomous driving start-up after a government review of his technology. That gave the Beijing company, Uisee,