Flying Solo: The Rise of China’s One-Person Companies
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FEATURESFlying Solo: The Rise of China’s One-Person Companies<br>Thanks to AI, a new form of solo entrepreneurship has taken root, granting individuals the ability to perform tasks that once required many workers.
By Li Xin<br>May 25, 2026#artificial intelligence#business
An orange clownfish smiled in the middle of the screen on Ying Junjiu’s computer at the tech startup event — the mascot of a productivity app he’d designed. Downloading the app would allow users to monitor their “fishing rate,” or how much time they had spent on work versus non work apps.<br>This was Momoyu Timer: an ocean-themed macOS app that makes time tracking feel less like an audit and more like a game. The app’s name comes from the term mo yu — literally, “feeling for fish” — slang for slacking off during work hours.<br>“I wanted something that felt lighthearted and a touch of fun,” he said.<br>Just two years ago, Ying’s app would have required multiple people, if not an entire team, to code, design, and scale it.
But he had built it entirely himself.<br>For years, Ying had been a user interface designer, a master of screen layouts but largely unfamiliar with the code that makes software function. “I’ve always been fascinated by programming,” he said, “but I was stuck at the surface. Simple web pages I could do, but full, functioning apps and software were beyond me.”<br>Then came a layoff in 2024, and with it a turning point thanks to the rise of AI. Using AI tools such as Cursor and Codex, Ying built, debugged, and launched Momoyu on Apple’s App Store.<br>In China, founders like Ying are at the forefront of a new career trend — using artificial intelligence to start “one-person companies,” or OPCs. Most are young, born in the 1990s and 2000s.<br>The OPC concept has existed for years and earned legal recognition under China’s Company Law. For a long time, however, it was largely symbolic, as solo entrepreneurship was rarely viable due to technical barriers, startup costs, and the manpower required to build and scale a business.<br>Advances in AI over the past three years have changed that. From coding to workflow management, powerful AI tools such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek, and more recently, OpenClaw, now allow individuals to handle tasks that once required entire teams.<br>By June 2025, China had registered over 16 million OPCs — more than a quarter of all businesses in the country — according to an industry report released by the Beijing-based Zhongguancun Talent Association. OPCs span from digital content creation and design to cross-border e-commerce and professional consulting.
Policy is quickly catching up, bringing OPCs into the public spotlight. More than 20 Chinese cities have worked OPCs into their development plans so far, with perks ranging from incubator spaces to subsidies.<br>Policy push<br>The OPC fervor began spreading in November, when the city of Suzhou in eastern China announced plans to become a hub for AI solopreneurs.<br>A slew of regional policies across the country followed quickly: Shanghai’s Pudong New Area offered to cover startup computing costs up to 300,000 yuan ($44,000), and the southern tech hub of Shenzhen set targets to build more than 10 OPC communities exceeding 10,000 square meters each by 2027.<br>Similar policies followed in cities within the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and emerging industrial cities in central and western China.
For serial entrepreneur Chen Dabo, the craze evokes nostalgia. It takes him back to 2014, when the state led the “mass entrepreneurship” push to spark internet-age innovation. Under the initiative, China funded new ventures and offered subsidized workspaces, giving rise to tech giants such as TikTok owner ByteDance, e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, and lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu, known internationally as RedNote. Prior to 2014, entrepreneurship had rarely been considered a serious career path for both Chen and in China generally.<br>Riding that wave, Chen, who graduated from university that year, founded three companies, including a design software firm that raised millions of yuan in venture capital.<br>“A popular saying back then was that a startup was like a new-generation rock band,” Chen said. Startups at the time were considered “cool” — synonymous with rebellion and ambition. “Now, OPCs seem to be the cool thing,” he added.<br>The change is reflected in the quick rise of OPC communities — gated communities offering flexible workspaces, networking opportunities, and resources tailored for solo founders. Across 38 Chinese cities, 143 OPC communities have emerged, according to a report by online entrepreneur platform OPCquan.<br>“I Have A Demo,” an OPC accelerator — a company that provides startups with funding and business guidance — based in the eastern city of Hangzhou, was among...