China's Leading Technologists: RICHARD CHANG, GAO WEN, LI DONGSHENG, LI GUOJIE, MA HUATENG, REN ZHENGFEI, WANG YONGZHI, WU JIANPING, YANG YUANQING

From IEEESpectrumOnline: TEN TO WATCH

China's leading technologists:

RICHARD CHANG, CEO of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.. SMIC has become China's leading chip maker.

LI DONGSHENG is cofounder, president, and chairman of TCL Corp.
Two years ago, TCL became the world's biggest TV maker when it bought the television division of France's Thomson SA, in Boulogne.

LI GUOJIE As director of the Institute of Computing Technology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Li Guojie wants China to become a world leader in information technology.

MA HUATENG cofounded Tencent Computer System Co., in Shenzhen. The firm now hosts China's largest instant-messaging platform, with more than 300 million subscribers, and it recently launched a successful online gaming business.

REN ZHENGFEI, a former People's Liberation Army telecom engineer, cofounded Huawei Technologies Co., in Shenzhen. Huawei is now competing with the likes of Cisco and Alcatel in the design and manufacture of telecom equipment.

YANG MIANMIAN may get less press than Haier Group Co.'s CEO, Zhang Ruimin, but as president of Haier, in Qingdao, China's largest appliance maker, she is a key player behind the scenes.

WU JIANPING the "main sponsor and organizer of China's next-generation Internet." A computer networking expert, Wu is managing director of the China Education and Research Network, which connects the nation's universities and research institutions.

YANG YUANQING Few people had heard of Lenovo Group Ltd., in Beijing, until it bought IBM Corp.'s PC division last year. Even fewer had heard of Lenovo's 40-year-old CEO, Yang Yuanquing, who brokered the deal that turned Lenovo into the world's third-largest PC maker.

WANG YONGZHI China was the third nation to send a person into space, and its manned space program owes much to chief designer, Wang Yongzhi.

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