Chinese entrepreneur Zhou Chaonan made headlines by joining the exclusive circle of women billionaires in the country and gaining a place among the world’s 500 richest individuals. This remarkable achievement comes after a significant rise in the stock value of her company, which supplies computing power to ByteDance.
At 64, he helms Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group Co., the data center operator that plays the linchpin role in underpinning the ambitious artificial intelligence programs of ByteDance. The biggest client for Range is ByteDance – owner of TikTok.
In 2024, Range Intelligent’s stock catapulted upwards by 105%, propelling Zhou’s net worth to an astonishing $7.7 billion, if calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which for the first time has counted her valuation, are anything to go by. She is chairwoman of the company.
Under Mr. Zhou, Range Intelligent has become one of China’s biggest success stories to date, driven by Beijing’s policy initiatives on artificial intelligence. And as China works to surpass the US in that key sector, Range Intelligent finds itself well-positioned to meet increasing demand for the AI technology it develops.
Zhou’s road to success is driven by the slogan of the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong: “Women can hold up half the sky.” Graduated in the first class after China’s Cultural Revolution, she started her career in the commerce bureau in Hengyang, Hunan Province. In the early years of her career, she worked for ten years in a local oil and grain transfer station and later as a manager in a state-owned trading company from 1994 to 2000.
When she was 40 years old, Zhou started her first venture, Tiantong Communication Network, a mobile telecommunications firm that serves the whole of China. Her second firm, Range Technology Development, was founded in 2009.
Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group Co Ltd, formerly known as Shanghai Precise Packaging Co., Ltd., mainly specializes in research and development, production, and sale of liquid food packaging machinery and paper-aluminum composite aseptic packaging materials. The main products are filling machine series equipment, pre-treatment equipment, and technical consultation services for liquid food production enterprises.
It operates 61 data centers with more than 320,000 server racks and is the backbone of most big cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen-one of the crucial players in today’s technology setting.
