Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are a vital force driving innovation, boosting employment, and improving livelihoods. Over the years, Beijing has continuously optimized its business environment, cultivating fertile ground through supportive policies to stimulate the development momentum and innovative vitality of SMEs. As of the end of September last year, there were 2.212 million operational SMEs in Beijing, an increase of 133,000 compared to the same period in 2024. Since the beginning of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the number of specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative SMEs in the city has increased more than tenfold, and the number of "little giant" enterprises has grown by over 1,000. Overall, SMEs in Beijing contribute approximately 40% of the city's tax revenue, 50% of patented technological inventions, and 80% of employment opportunities. They have become the main channel for employment and entrepreneurship, the main front for technological innovation, and the main force in developing new, high-quality productive forces.
In September 2025, at the awards ceremony of the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea, the moment "The Battle of Biyou Village" won the Best Visual Effects award in the streaming media category, two young men in the audience instantly had tears in their eyes and embraced each other tightly. Without time to compose themselves, they took the stage, their voices trembling with emotion, and poured out their heartfelt thoughts in one breath, even forgetting to leave time for translation. This marked the first time a Chinese visual effects company had won this award, defeating formidable competitors like Disney and top South Korean teams, showcasing the hardcore capabilities of Chinese film and television VFX to the world.
This young team hails from an SME based in Tongzhou, Beijing: Shenli Shijie (Beijing) Culture Technology Co., Ltd. The founder, Quan Hongkun, is a young entrepreneur pursuing a dream in visual effects. Leading a group of partners with an average age in their twenties, he started by taking on minor, leftover tasks. Over more than a decade, they have meticulously polished their craft frame by frame, creating a VFX legend for Chinese youth.
A recent visit to this vibrant company revealed the passion and dedication behind these young entrepreneurs. Pushing open the door of Shenli Shijie, one is met with an atmosphere full of youthful energy. Instead of a dull office environment, the post-production area is filled with young faces intently focused on dual-screen monitors. The sounds of clicking mice and keyboards are constant, while screens display stunning cosmic scenes from "The Three-Body Problem" and realistic superpower visuals from "The Battle of Biyou Village." Every pixel and every sequence of shots embodies the painstaking effort of the young team.
Here, the post-production of a film or TV project is broken down into over a dozen precise processes: modeling, rendering, special effects, compositing, and more. Young employees in different roles collaborate and tackle challenges in succession, like dedicated artisans carefully sculpting each frame. "Most of our team are post-90s and post-00s generations, brought together by a love for the VFX industry. Everyone is driven and willing to take on tough challenges," said Cheng Jin, the Deputy General Manager and also a young entrepreneur, his eyes full of pride when speaking about the team.
This same team, capable of winning international awards, was just a small group of over a dozen young people a decade ago. At that time, the domestic VFX industry was largely monopolized by foreign teams, with major productions relying on overseas technology, making it difficult for local VFX companies to survive. Quan Hongkun, who had just left a renowned foreign film company, embarked on an entrepreneurial journey driven by the dream of "creating China's own top-tier visual effects," accompanied by like-minded young partners. "Back then, we had no reputation or resources. We took on the 'hard bones' left by big companies and the minor tasks nobody else wanted," Quan Hongkun recalled with a smile about the early days. The young team was not afraid of hardship; while others avoided overtime, they worked through the night. While others stopped for the Spring Festival holiday, they remained at their computers even on New Year's Eve. For the first three years, projects only came during holidays. These young people did not complain, treating each small project as an opportunity to hone their skills, gradually accumulating experience and building their capabilities.
For these young VFX artists, the happiest moment is not the pay, but seeing the name "Shenli Shijie" appear on the screen during the closing credits. "That's when you feel all the late nights and hard work were worth it. It's the greatest recognition for our young team," Quan Hongkun said, echoing the sentiments of all team members.
In the film VFX industry, there has long been an "impossible triangle": short production cycles, limited budgets, and ultra-high quality are almost impossible to achieve simultaneously. However, the young team at Shenli Shijie, driven by relentless determination, broke this industry curse and shone on the international stage. The project "The Battle of Biyou Village" made the team famous. The VFX production for the 13-episode series took over half a year, involving more than 4,000 high-precision shots, each meticulously refined. A particularly challenging 30-second long shot at the beginning, depicting a character's sacrifice, was designated the core "Hero shot" of the series. "The director required the shot to slowly pull back from a close-up to a wide shot, with even the dust particles in the air having texture. We had to create a 1:1 replica of the character and scene in 3D space, with precision capable of withstanding extreme close-ups and full detail," Cheng Jin explained. This shot was extremely difficult, and few teams in the industry were willing to attempt it. But these young people were determined to challenge themselves, forming a dedicated task force. Five or six young employees worked day and night for nearly half a year, repeatedly calculating and adjusting effects down to the light and shadow on a single speck of dust until it was perfect.
To meet the deadline and ensure quality, almost everyone on the team worked 16 to 18 hours daily. Office sofas and corners became temporary resting spots; they would nap when exhausted and then return to work. "We are all young, full of drive and obsession. Since we took it on, we had to do our best and not hold back Chinese VFX," said a young special effects artist. Ultimately, their extreme focus and dedication paid off with a perfect result. For VFX production of similar scale, foreign teams would typically require a year at five to six times the cost. Yet, Shenli Shijie's young team delivered high-quality effects comparable to international standards within limited time and budget, successfully defeating giants like Disney to win the Busan festival award, achieving a zero breakthrough for Chinese VFX at this award. "My hands were shaking when I went on stage. We never expected to win, up against top international teams. We originally came just to learn," Quan Hongkun recalled, still emotional. This honor was not only recognition of the team's technical skill but also the best reward for the courage and tenacity of young entrepreneurs.
This was not the team's first highlight. Previously, as a core production partner for the TV series "The Three-Body Problem," Shenli Shijie handled nearly half of the content production, including all game CGI and special effects shots, creating visuals so accurate they were praised as "page-for-page" adaptations, receiving high acclaim online. Little known is that this benchmark project stemmed from the team's "starting from scratch" efforts eight years prior. At the time, China lacked mature, scalable motion capture and 3D scanning technologies. Undeterred, these young entrepreneurs studied professional papers and collaborated with universities on technical research. To save costs, they built their own rigs and applied polarizing films, essentially handcrafting a set of film-grade scanning equipment. They became the first team in China to apply scanning and motion capture technology at scale in film VFX.
Currently, as AI technology sweeps across industries, the film VFX sector is undergoing transformative changes. Facing the challenges and opportunities brought by new technology, these young entrepreneurs have demonstrated remarkable acuity and initiative, early on making strategic moves in AI to build core competitive advantages through innovation, charting a "film + technology" path for youth entrepreneurship. "AI technology iterates too fast. Software updates used to take three years, then shortened to six months. Now AI models can iterate daily. Our young team must keep up with the trends; lagging slightly means falling behind," Quan Hongkun admitted. As early as three years ago, when many peers were still observing AI, he led the team to establish an AI task force, personally overseeing research and development. They completed the entire process from model training and scene adaptation to full industrial chain implementation within half a month.
To support large AI model operations, the team built a dual-data-center architecture with "Beijing storage and Ulanqab computing." Over 4,000 computing nodes run day and night, leveraging the locational advantages of different cities to ensure computing power while reducing costs, saving over a million yuan annually on electricity alone. Simultaneously, the team independently developed the "Songguo" AI-powered film-grade visual creation platform. It deeply integrates the 17-18 steps of film industrialization with AI, creating an "infinite canvas"创作模式 that allows creators to complete the entire workflow—from text-to-image, AI-generated video, to scriptwriting—within a single account, far exceeding the efficiency of common industry platforms. AI involvement increased from just 5% during "The Battle of Biyou Village" to 30-50% now, and is expected to surpass 70% this year. AI technology has not only saved the team about 30% in production costs but also fully unleashed the creative potential of the young team. "AI isn't replacing us; it's helping us improve efficiency, freeing us to focus more on creative work. For young creators, this is a fantastic opportunity," said the team's technical director, who leads R&D in optimizing AI for seamless integration of technology and art.
Today, Shenli Shijie has established four core business areas: film and television VFX, AI-generated comics, advertising, and self-developed software. Its annual post-production capacity reaches 80 projects, with overseas business accounting for 10%, serving platforms like Netflix and TikTok. The company has established branches in Inner Mongolia, Shaoxing, Chongqing, and Wuxi, completing a nationwide layout. From a small youth team to an industry-leading VFX enterprise, these young people have written a growth legend for SMEs through innovation and hard work.
"Growing from a small team to an industry leader, achieving the leap from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 100, could only happen in Beijing. This city has provided us young entrepreneurs with immense opportunities and support," Quan Hongkun reflected on their journey in the capital. As a national cultural and technological hub, Beijing concentrates top-tier industrial resources, talent, and technological information, providing uniquely fertile ground for youth entrepreneurship. Based in Tongzhou, Shenli Shijie has benefited from comprehensive policy support at both municipal and district levels. Tongzhou District provides guarantees in areas like talent settlement, children's education, and housing subsidies, addressing the team's practical concerns. In 2025, the company received project subsidies from both Beijing Municipality and Tongzhou District, with timely financial support helping it overcome technical challenges and expand its scale.
What benefited the team even more was Beijing's unique information advantage and industrial atmosphere. Before the Spring Festival, as AI technology experienced explosive growth, Quan Hongkun, through policy interpretations at the municipal and district levels, anticipated industry trends one to two months in advance. This allowed for rapid system and software updates, seizing the initiative in the technological wave. "The speed of industrial information updates in Beijing lets us grasp industry trends immediately. This is unmatched elsewhere and is a core advantage for our youth entrepreneurship," he noted. The entrepreneurial path inevitably had rough patches. At the most difficult times, Quan Hongkun mortgaged his personal property multiple times to support the company's operations. It was this dedication to the dream, coupled with the support of Beijing's high-quality business environment, that helped the team weather successive challenges.
Now, the team has not only achieved its own development but also created jobs for over 1,500 people, nurturing a large number of young VFX talents. Through an industry-education-research integration model, it enables many young VFX enthusiasts to transition directly from graduation to employment, injecting fresh vitality into the industry. From a young team taking on minor tasks to an industry benchmark on the international stage; from solving technical problems from scratch to leading the industry with self-developed AI platforms, the young entrepreneurs of Shenli Shijie have, through over a decade of perseverance and hard work, exemplified the responsibility and capability of the new generation's youth, also showcasing the innovative vitality of SMEs in the capital. "In the future, we will maintain our original aspirations, increase R&D investment, lead more young partners, and create more high-quality VFX works to bring Chinese visual effects to the world," Quan Hongkun said.
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