AI-powered one-person companies (OPCs) are taking off across China, as individuals use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to handle every stage of a business, from product design to market launch.

The number of OPC communities nationwide jumped from 95 to 618 in the first half of this year and now spans 24 provinces and 75 cities, according to the 2026 national OPC development observation report.

Entrepreneurs pin their information on an exhibition board at the ModelScope Developer Center in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province. (People's Daily Overseas Edition/Dou Hao) 

Hangzhou, the capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, is now home to more than 2,000 "AI+OPC" enterprises and more than 50 such communities.

At Honghub, an OPC community in Hangzhou's Shangcheng district, entrepreneurs work side by side at open desks, each running a company on their own.

"AI has bridged the skills gap, giving one person a skill set spanning copywriting, design and programming," said Li Yunfan, an entrepreneur in the community who led a software team before shifting to solo entrepreneurship.

His flagship product, an AI-powered essay-grading app, has attracted more than 15,000 users, who can photograph essays and receive automatic feedback. He is also developing a study-monitoring app.

"AI now handles 80 percent of the coding," Li said. "I'm the strategist, product manager and chief operating officer."

Since launching in September 2025, Honghub has incubated more than 50 "AI+" projects spanning finance, construction, education and health care. A 2026 report issued by Honghub found that 75 percent of OPC founders now come from non-technical backgrounds.

A sharing session takes place at Honghub, a one-person company community in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province. (Photo courtesy of Honghub) 

One such founder, Zeng Xiaofeng, was an IT consultant and solution architect before leaving his job last year without any coding experience.

In August last year, he took advantage of a developer incentive program under Chinese tech giant Huawei's HarmonyOS operating system, using AI tools to build his first app prototype in two weeks. He then completed a 20-hour HarmonyOS course and refined the app through repeated interactions with AI, eventually producing a fully functional product.

He has since developed an AI-powered smart hub device and is now testing a multi-agent collaborative management system.

"As AI has driven down the marginal cost of writing code, a technical background is no longer a prerequisite for starting a business. Industry knowledge, user insight and business judgment matter more," he said.

The 2026 national OPC development observation report described today's OPC founders as young and highly educated, with a single person now able to complete work that once required a team of five to 10 people.

"AI+OPC" communities are popping up across Hangzhou, offering entrepreneurs a supportive environment for growth.

At the Y Community, an end-to-end AI industry hub in Xiaoshan district spanning chips, models and applications, OPC founder Zhang Xiaobo built a data-labeling platform for intelligent driving systems.

His company's rapid growth owes much to the systematic support of the Y Community, Zhang said. The community offers ready-to-use services, including free workstations, shared meeting rooms and high-speed internet, and entrepreneurs regularly gather to exchange ideas. Zhang, who has been recognized under Xiaoshan district's talent program, said the monthly rental subsidy provided through the program helped him get through the toughest early stage of starting his company.

Photo shows an interior view of the ModelScope Developer Center in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province. (Photo/Zhang Wenqi) 

Zhang has since expanded his team to more than 60 people, describing the shift as a move from an OPC to a "Super Team Company."

At the first "AI+OPC" Innovation and Development Conference in Hangzhou, the city outlined measures covering communities, resources, talent, financing and services to support the growth of "super individuals" in the AI era. These include faster regional spatial planning, smoother data flows and a stronger supply of computing power and models.

Hangzhou also aims to build more than 100 OPC communities by 2028, cultivate over 100 OPCs with annual revenue exceeding 10 million yuan (about $1.48 million) each, and attract more than 30,000 OPC entrepreneurs.

In April, the city's market regulation administration rolled out 12 measures covering business registration, intellectual property protection and credit support for OPC founders.

Hangzhou attracted more than 350,000 people under 35 each year, and its core AI industry generated revenue of 122.9 billion yuan in the first quarter, up 25.2 percent year on year.

The city aims to build the nation's leading hub for "AI+OPC" entrepreneurship, said Du Xuliang, Hangzhou's mayor.