Big data and science fiction valleys in Guizhou Business News SupChina

China's first virtual reality (VR) theme park opened near Guiyang, the provincial capital of Guizhou. The park features 35 virtual attractions -- instead of getting on a roller coaster, you don VR goggles -- but there is a spectacular physical construction, too: a 53-meter-tall, 700-ton statue of a robot. You can watch a CGTN video report on Oriental Science Fiction Valley, or read these reports on the park from Reuters and Kotaku. Guizhou, one of China's poorest provinces, is perhaps most famous for Lao Ganma 老干妈 spicy sauce and Maotai, the sorghum-based spirit that lubricated Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. But the VR theme park is just the most recent manifestation of an initiative to drastically change Guizhou's economy and image, with support from the very top: