"One-Person Company" Reshapes Office Building Market Ecosystem

Securities Times Reporter Wu Jiaming

Currently, “One-Person Companies” (OPC) are quietly emerging and are becoming a new focus for innovation and entrepreneurship in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) across various regions. For the office building market, the rise of OPC communities is also reshaping the ecosystem of office space.

At present, many places are promoting the construction of OPC communities. Previously, the “Shenzhen Action Plan for Building an AI OPC Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Leading Area (2026–2027)” was officially issued, proposing that by the end of 2027, more than 10 OPC communities with an area of no less than 10,000 square meters each will be established, gathering over 10,000 AI innovation and entrepreneurship talents, making Shenzhen the top choice for AI innovation and entrepreneurship nationwide.

So, what do OPC communities actually look like? On-site investigation by the reporter found that OPC communities are quite different in style from traditional, busy office buildings.

At π Creative Space in Yuehai City, Luohu, Shenzhen, a single workstation might be a company itself. Entrepreneurs communicate with each other, and the relaxed atmosphere is completely different from traditional office areas. It is understood that the first batch of eight companies has already moved into π Creative Space, with over ten more interested in joining. The focus is on AI marketing, embodied robots, and other fields. Liu Wenhui, the person in charge of π Creative Space, told the reporter that currently, eligible companies can rent space for free.

In several OPC communities in Futian and Nanshan districts, Shenzhen, some are renting out workstations to entrepreneurs. The monthly rent for some OPC workstations ranges mostly between 600 and 1,000 yuan. Some of these OPC communities are converted from old industrial parks, while others are located within traditional commercial office buildings. Unlike traditional office leasing, community operators also hold activities such as industry matchmaking and technical exchanges, rather than merely providing physical office space.

The rise of OPC communities inevitably brings to mind shared offices. According to Zhang Xiaoduan, Deputy Dean of Centaline Research Institute, shared offices mainly focus on flexible working needs of small and micro enterprises or companies covering multiple regions, emphasizing space flexibility, community services, and value-added services for enterprises. OPC communities tend to target small-scale startups, with similar requirements for space and lease flexibility and cost control. Additionally, tech-heavy and AI-focused OPC communities emphasize resource integration and ecological collaboration, enabling individuals or core entrepreneurs to quickly access supply chain support and related integrated services. Therefore, ultra-low costs, industrial clusters, computing power support, and policy assistance are key elements that differentiate OPC communities from shared offices.

Currently, including Shenzhen, most key cities’ office markets still face the problems of massive supply and high vacancy rates. The emergence of OPC communities seems to be one of the “solutions” to high vacancy rates in office markets. However, it is also important to consider whether there is a “client poaching” issue between OPC communities and traditional office operators.

“OPC communities are not yet mainstream in the office market,” said Manager Chang, who has been working in office space brokerage in Nanshan Science and Technology Park for nearly ten years. He noted that demand for small workstations and micro-offices has indeed increased in the past year or two. Some office buildings that previously only offered whole-floor rentals are now being subdivided for leasing, but the demand remains scattered. However, Manager Chang also emphasized that OPC communities target different customer groups than traditional office buildings. Many small tech companies are still moving into Grade-A office buildings during the current period of relatively low rent. Traditional office operators should adjust their strategies in time and provide more services to these startups.

Yu Lingqu, Executive Director of the Financial Development and State-Owned Enterprise Research Institute at China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute, believes that under the significant reduction of R&D barriers brought by AI, individual entrepreneurship is gradually becoming an important supplement to the technological innovation system. “In the future, the innovation structure may present a ‘large enterprise + OPC’ collaborative model, where large enterprises provide platforms and application scenarios, and individual entrepreneurs become new nodes of innovation.”