Heading":"Got something you're trying to work out?","ctaBody":"An AI build, a second opinion on a direction, or just a straight answer about what's really going on in China — write and I'll reply. I read everything that comes in myself.","ctaButton":"Get in touch","positionLine":"No loyalty to any lab or vendor — I'd rather roam the whole field and find the one tool that actually fits the problem in front of you.","proof":{"years":{"value":"10 years","label":"Architecting & leading high-scale systems & the teams behind them"},"projects":{"value":"100+ projects","label":"Delivered across manufacturing, retail, finance, hospitality & more"},"gov":{"value":"Hangzhou","label":"Over three years on the ground in China's AI capital"}},"workOutcomeHeading":"Evidence, not thumbnails","workOutcomeDescription":"Each project led by its result. Role, year, and the build behind it as supporting detail."},"about":{"credentialsEyebrow":"About the author","focusHeading":"Areas of focus","eyebrow":"About","lede":"A Western technologist in Hangzhou, making sense of Chinese AI and robotics for the rest of the world — and the other way round.","para1":"I first came to Hangzhou in 2016, and it took me seven years to find my way back. In the time I was away, it became the sort of city where the labs behind DeepSeek, Qwen, Unitree and Deep Robotics are all a short ride from my apartment. Most people follow Chinese technology from the other side of the world; I get to watch it up close — near enough to see what's really going on, foreign enough to be honest about it.","para2":"Before Hangzhou, I spent a decade in Western technology — architecting high-scale systems, leading the teams that built them, and staying close enough to the engineering to know when a plan wouldn't survive contact with reality. The work ran across manufacturing, retail, finance, hospitality and insurance, and at one point as far as advising UK Government ministers on the future of smart cities. None of it was about AI, and all of it turned out to be useful preparation for it.","para3":"The work splits two ways. From the West: whether DeepSeek is safe to use, whether to build on Qwen, whether the robots are as far along as the videos suggest. From China: a Western read on the wider market — where their tools fit beyond home, and what 'going global' actually asks of them. Same vantage, pointed in two directions.","para4":"Away from all that, I'm a photographer and a PADI Divemaster — which explains the galleries and the dive log scattered through this site. I spent a year in Barbados leading dives and strapping coral fragments to restoration frames; these days it's the part of my life with no screens in it, which is probably why it works.","focus":{"ai":"Chinese AI, robotics & the global ecosystem","leadership":"AI strategy & advisory","building":"Cross-border AI (China ↔ world)","personal":"Photography & diving"},"elsewhereHeading":"Elsewhere","portraitAlt":"Portrait of {name}","breadcrumbHome":"Home","proof":{"years":{"value":"10 years","label":"Architecting and leading high-scale systems and the teams behind them"},"projects":{"value":"100+ projects","label":"Delivered across manufacturing, retail, finance, hospitality and more"},"gov":{"value":"2 governments","label":"Advised UK Ministers on the future of Smart Cities, and the Government of Barbados on coral restoration and reef health"}},"credentials":{"degreesHeading":"Degrees","certificationsHeading":"Certifications"},"timelineEyebrow":"Track record","timelineHeading":"A decade, role by role","timeline":{"0":{"period":"[ year — present ]","title":"[ current role / title ]","org":"[ named company or practice ]","body":"[ what you own here, and the one shipped thing you would point to — your metric or outcome ]"},"1":{"period":"[ year — year ]","title":"[ previous role / title ]","org":"[ named company ]","body":"[ the system or team you led, and the result it produced — your number ]"},"2":{"period":"[ year — year ]","title":"[ earl