Winston Ma - The Digital War

What I never expected then was that China's digital transformation would become so dynamic and powerful that I would have to write one book each year to cover its leap forward. After China's Mobile Economy (English, 2016), I published my book serial in different languages— Digital Economy 2.0 (Chinese, 2017), The Digital Silk Road (German, 2018), and China's AI Big Bang (Japanese, 2019)—before I returned to work with Wiley again to publish this book, in English, with the China–US tech war in the background.

***

A book on such a complex and fast-moving topic would not have been possible if I had not been blessed to work with and learn from an amazing group of mentors in business, law, and tech investments.

My deepest thanks go to Dr. Rita and Gus Hauser at the New York University (NYU) School of Law, and John Sexton, the legendary Dean of NYU Law School when I was pursuing my LL.M degree in Comparative Law. My PE/VC investing, investment banking, and practicing attorney experiences all started with the generous Hauser scholarship in 1997.

During his decade-long tenure as the President of NYU, John kindly engaged me at his inaugural President's Global Council as he developed the world's first and only GNU (global network university). My NYU experience was the foundation for my future career as a global professional working in the cross-border business world. Great thanks to John Sexton, the legendary Dean of NYU Law School when I was pursuing my LL.M degree in Comparative Law.

My sincere appreciation to both Mr. Lou Jiwei and Dr. Gao Xi-qing, the inaugural Chairman and President of China Investment Corporation (CIC), for recruiting me at its inception. One of the most gratifying aspects of being part of CIC is the opportunity to be exposed to a wide range of global financial markets' new developments. The unique platform has brought me to the movers and shakers everywhere in the world, including Silicon Valley projects that linked global tech innovation with the Chinese market.

The same thanks go to Chairman Ding Xue-dong and President Li Ke-ping, whom I reported to at CIC in recent years. Similarly, thanks to Linda Simpson, senior partner at the New York headquarters of Davis Polk & Wardwell, and Santosh Nabar, Managing Director at the New York headquarters of J. P. Morgan. Those two former bosses on Wall Street gave me a foundation to develop a career in the global capital markets.

Many thanks to Mr. Jing Liqun, President of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and formerly the Supervisory Chairman of CIC, for educating me about Shakespeare's works besides guiding me professionally. The readings on Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear improved my English writing skills, and hopefully, the writing style of the book serial is more interesting and engaging than my previous finance textbook Investing in China .

For such a dynamic book topic, I benefited from the best market intelligence from a distinctive group of institutional investors, tech entrepreneurs, and business leaders at the World Economic Forum (WEF), especially my peers at the Young Global Leaders (YGL) community and Council for Digital Economy and Society. Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, has a tremendous vision of a sustainable, shared digital future for the world, which is an important theme of this book.

My gratitude goes to many other outstanding friends, colleagues, practitioners, and academics who provided expert opinions, feedback, insights, and suggestions for improvement. For anecdotes, pointers, and constant reality checks, I turned to them because they were at the front line of industry and business practices. I would particularly like to thank the friends at the West Summit Fund, which I set up at CIC in 2009 for cross-border investments between Silicon Valley and China. Over the last 10 years, we’ve had great fun together.

On its journey from a collection of ideas and themes to a coherent book, the manuscript went through multiple iterations and a meticulous editorial and review process by the John Wiley team, led by the book commissioning editor Gemma Valler. Our long-term collaboration started with my 2016 book, and in 2020, just months before this book, we worked together and released another new work, The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds Are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy (October 2020). The managing editor Purvi Patel and copyeditor Barbara Long contributed substantially to the final shape of the book. Special thanks to Gladys Ganaden for her design of the book cover and figures.

And last in the lineup but first in my heart, I thank my wife, Angela Ju-hsin Pan, who gave me love and support. You are a true partner in helping me frame and create this work. Thank you for the patience you had while I wrecked our weekends and evenings working on this book.

Winston Wenyan Ma, CFA & Esq.

Winston Ma is an investor, attorney, author, and adjunct professor in the global digital economy. He is one of a small number of native Chinese who have worked as investment professionals and practiced as capital markets attorneys in both the United States and China. Most recently, for 10 years, he was Managing Director and Head of North America Office for China Investment Corporation (CIC), China's sovereign wealth fund.

At CIC's inception in 2007, he was among the first group of overseas hires by CIC, where he was a founding member of both CIC's Private Equity Department and later the Special Investment Department for direct investing (Head of CIC North America office 2014–2015). He had leadership roles in global investments involving financial services, technology (TMT), energy, and natural resources sectors, including the setup of West Summit (Huashan) Capital, a cross-border growth capital fund in Silicon Valley, which was CIC's first overseas tech investment.

Prior to that, Ma served as the deputy head of equity capital markets at Barclays Capital, a vice president at J.P. Morgan investment banking, and a corporate lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. A nationally certified software programmer as early as 1994, Ma is the book author of Investing in China: New Opportunities in a Transforming Stock Market (Risk Books, 2006), China's Mobile Economy: Opportunities in the Largest and Fastest Information Consumption Boom (Wiley, 2016; among “best 2016 business books for CIOs”), Digital Economy 2.0 (2017, Chinese), The Digital Silk Road (2018, German), and China's AI Big Bang (2019, Japanese).

He is also an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law. Relating to his course “Sovereign Investments & Regulations”, he published The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds Are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy (2020) with Wiley.

Ma has served on the boards of multinational listed and private companies. He was selected a 2013 Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and has been a member of the Council for Long-Term Investing and Council for Digital Economy and Society. He is a member of New York University (NYU) President's Global Council since its inception, and in 2014, he received the NYU Distinguished Alumni Award.

The author can be reached on LinkedIn for comments and feedback on The Digital War: How China's Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain and Cyberspace .

In May 2017, China hosted the historical match of the weiqi game (the “Go” game) between Ke Jie, the world's No.1 ranked player and world champion, and the AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled computer Go program named AlphaGo, designed by the DeepMind Lab of the US internet giant Google. The Wuzhen showdown was ripe with suspense and symbolism—human versus machine, intuition versus algorithm, tradition versus modern, and with the AI machine's straight 3–0 win over the world’s best human player, the unequivocal rise of the “digital economy”.