I came to China
14 years ago.
What I learned is your competitive advantage today.

Critical knowledge you won’t find in any report. Building a bridge with China takes years. Mine is already built.

gabriel morell

The Person Behind the Bridge

For more than 14 years I have been working inside China’s business, technology and institutional environments, helping international organizations navigate one of the world’s most complex industrial ecosystems.

I’m Gabriel Morell, from Spain. Fourteen years ago a Chinese entrepreneur hired me for what was supposed to be a one-year position in China. Fourteen years later, I’m still here.

What began as a professional adventure gradually became something much deeper: a Chinese family, fluency in the language and cultural codes, and a network of collaborators built year after year, project after project.

For many years I worked as the operational bridge between China and some of the world’s most recognized organizations — coordinating local teams on the ground, solving cultural and operational frictions in real time, and supporting Western decision-makers navigating complex projects in China.

In recent years I have increasingly specialized in China’s technology and industrial ecosystems, areas where the country is advancing at a pace that much of the world is still trying to fully understand.

Today, my work focuses on three interconnected areas. First, technology and industrial ecosystem analysis: mapping how China organises its industrial clusters, supply chains, AI deployment, robotics and smart infrastructure as integrated systems — not as isolated technologies. Second, China–Europe strategic intelligence: translating on-the-ground knowledge into actionable insights for European institutions, innovation programmes, industrial clusters and policy actors working on reindustrialisation, strategic autonomy and technology deployment at scale. Third, ecosystem orchestration: enabling direct engagement between Chinese and European innovation networks, from technology briefings and sector landscape reports to participation in European research consortia and industrial projects.

Operating from Hangzhou — one of China’s most advanced technology hubs, home to leading ecosystems in AI, robotics, digital economy and advanced manufacturing — gives this work something most China analysis lacks: direct observation, not secondary interpretation.

Over time, my role has become very specific: helping international organizations understand how these ecosystems actually function. In that sense, my work increasingly resembles that of a technology ecosystem translator, helping European actors understand how Chinese industrial and innovation systems actually function.

Puentes de Seda was born from this accumulated experience on the ground — turning China’s complexity into strategic clarity for Europe.

Because innovation in China rarely emerges from isolated companies. It develops inside coordinated ecosystems where industry, technology, capital and policy constantly interact. Understanding this ecosystem orchestration is essential for any meaningful collaboration.

As technological cooperation becomes increasingly international, it is also evolving into new forms of innovation diplomacy and ecosystem diplomacy, where companies, institutions and industrial networks must learn to collaborate across very different systems.

My role is to help build that bridge.