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FORTUNE.COM // JANUARY 2020
TECH IN 2014, FIVE STUDENTS from the cycling
club at Peking University had an idea
to build new, technologically savvy bicycles. The
bikes would allow customers to scan a code
with their smartphone, pay a small fee for a
short ride, and then park basically wherever
they pleased, where the next user would repeat
the process. In just a few years, this bike- sharing
idea became a countrywide phenomenon, and
by 2016, millions of new bicycles could be found
in cities across China supplied by companies
BIK E BUS T:
AN A .I. PREVIEW?
Investors in China’s doomed bike-sharing craze don’t seem
to have learned their lesson as an artificial intelligence
boom gathers speed. By Grady McGregor
EYESORE
Bike graveyards, the result of market-share
grabs, are commonplace in China.
CHEN ZIXIANG
—VISUAL CHINA GROUP VIA GET T Y IM
AGES
