China’s latest five-year plan leaves little ambiguity about the country’s ambitions in biotechnology. Biomanufacturing, including synthetic biology and genetic engineering, has been identified as a strategic sector within China’s emerging bioeconomy. Across government planning documents and provincial industrial policies, biology is increasingly framed not simply as a scientific field, but as a future industrial platform capable of reshaping pharmaceuticals, materials, agriculture, and energy.

At the heart of this shift lies DNA synthesis: the technological “write layer” of biology that allows scientists to design and manufacture genetic sequences.

As China rapidly expands its synthetic biology infrastructure, questions are emerging across the global biotech community. Is China becoming a genuine innovation ecosystem in synthetic biology? How competitive are Chinese companies in DNA synthesis and related technologies? And how will geopolitics shape collaboration and supply chains in the decade ahead?

To explore these questions, BridgeCross Bio spoke with three industry leaders working across the synthetic biology and gene synthesis ecosystem:

Jodi Barrientos, CEO of Ribbon Bio

Marc Montserrat, CEO of DNA Script

Jun Sun, Founder and Chairwoman of Zhonghe Gene Technology

Their perspectives reveal a nuanced picture of rapid industrial scaling, growing technical capability, and increasing geopolitical complexity.

One of the most striking themes emerging from industry observers is that China’s strength in synthetic biology may lie less in pioneering entirely new scientific frameworks and more in its ability to rapidly industrialize technologies at scale.

“China’s synbio ecosystem is really differentiated by speed, scale, and coordination,” says Jodi Barrientos, CEO of Ribbon Bio. “It can mobilize capital, infrastructure, and manufacturing capacity faster than Europe and certainly quicker than the U.S.”

This industrial approach aligns closely with China’s national strategy for biomanufacturing, which aims to develop large-scale production systems spanning pharmaceuticals, industrial biotechnology, and advanced materials. For Western companies, Barrientos argues, this creates both competitive pressure and potential openings, but navigating it requires strategic caution alongside genuine curiosity about the market.

Beyond manufacturing scale, China is also building out the broader ecosystem required to support advanced biotechnology. According to Marc Montserrat, CEO of DNA Script, the country’s rapid development of clinical infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities is particularly significant.

“A number of personalized therapies are being studied in China, and the country is building clinical infrastructure, manufacturing capability, and regulatory pathways in advanced therapies,” Montserrat notes. “For many people the narrative has been that Chinese manufacturers scale commodity synthesis while Western companies lead high-value applications. But that distinction may not hold indefinitely.”

This suggests China’s synthetic biology sector may not remain confined to commodity manufacturing. The country appears to be positioning itself across multiple layers of the biotechnology stack, from upstream research tools to advanced therapeutics.

Within China, a growing number of companies are working to develop domestic technology platforms that reduce reliance on imported equipment and Western-controlled supply chains.

Tianjin-based Zhonghe Gene Technology, founded in 2022 and backed by investors including Lenovo Capital and Guoke Venture Capital in a seed round last year, is among those pursuing enzymatic DNA synthesis, an approach also being developed by companies such as DNA Script in Europe. The technology aims to address well-documented limitations of conventional chemical synthesis: sequence length constraints, error rates, and the use of toxic solvents.

Jun Sun, the company’s founder and chairwoman, frames the opportunity in terms of China’s broader industrial strategy rather than purely technical ambition.

“The Chinese DNA synthesis market is currently at a pivotal moment,” Sun says. “The opportunity is driven by the explosive growth of synthetic biology and China’s national strategy for biomanufacturing.”

Whether domestic enzymatic platforms can close the gap with more established competitors remains to be seen. But the fact that multiple companies, on both sides of the Pacific, are now pursuing similar technological directions suggests the competitive landscape in DNA synthesis is evolving faster than the traditional commodity-versus-innovation narrative implies.

While China’s synthetic biology expansion is attracting global attention, collaboration between Chinese and Western companies is becoming increasingly complicated. Export controls, the US’s Biosecure Act, and broader decoupling trends are hardening the environment, and most observers expect barriers to increase rather than ease.

For Barrientos, the question is less whether to engage and more how to structure it. “Intellectual property protection, data governance, geopolitics, and biosecurity all need to be considered,” she says. “In today’s environment the key question is not whether to engage, but how and on what terms.”

Those purchasing decisions are already shifting. Chinese DNA synthesis providers remain highly competitive on price, but concerns around data security and regulatory risk are prompting some Western buyers to favour European or U.S.-based suppliers. Regional attitudes vary considerably, the issue is most pronounced in the United States, somewhat less so in Europe, and considerably less prominent across Latin America and other markets.

Looking ahead, lower costs, faster scaling, and coordinated industrial policy could intensify competition across large segments of the biotechnology value chain. Western companies are likely to respond by doubling down on intellectual-property-rich platforms, quality, and regulatory trust, while supply chains become increasingly regionalized across China, Europe, and the United States.

For Montserrat, the longer-term question is clinical: “Ultimately the world will be watching whether therapies approved by China’s regulator demonstrate efficacy in large patient populations.”

What is becoming clear is that synthetic biology and DNA synthesis are no longer simply scientific tools. They are increasingly viewed as strategic infrastructure for the future bioeconomy, comparable in significance to artificial intelligence or advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

The result is a global landscape where competition, collaboration, and geopolitical tension coexist, and where understanding China’s rapidly evolving ecosystem is becoming essential for any company operating in the life sciences.

As Barrientos puts it: “China’s strength lies in its ability to industrialize and scale technologies quickly. That makes it a serious competitive force.”

In the emerging global bioeconomy, the race to scale biology may ultimately prove just as important as the race to discover it.