China is rapidly expanding its global footprint in clean-tech manufacturing

A transformative wave of capital flowing from China is fundamentally defining the map of global clean technology manufacturing.  Since 2022, Chinese firms have rapidly accelerated overseas investments into green technologies, with 75 per cent of the projects being located in the Global South. Upamanyu Das writes on the downtoearth website about the new report from the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab.

China’s $220 billion capital injection turning Global South into clean tech hub

A transformative wave of capital flowing from China is fundamentally defining the map of global clean technology manufacturing. According to a new report by the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab (NZIPL), since 2022 alone, overseas investments by Chinese firms have surged past $220 billion.

These investments have spanned across 54 countries and include sectors such as batteries, solar, wind, new energy vehicles (NEV) and green hydrogen. The report’s authors highlighted that the scale of investments has surpassed the US Marshall Plan ($200 billion in current 2024 dollars) and, importantly, is strategically positioning the Global South within the global energy transition — with 75 per cent of these projects being located in emerging markets.

This analysis is based on the China Low Carbon Technology foreign direct investment (FDI) database, which catalogues 461 projects from 2011 to mid-2025. The database is hosted by NZIPL at Johns Hopkins University and the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, and will be incorporated into a broader Global Low Carbon Technology FDI database in the coming year.

Unprecedented pace & scale

The report points towards a dramatic rise in Chinese overseas green technology investments beginning in 2022. Over 80 per cent of the total 461 projects tracked by the database were launched after 2022, accounting for over $210 billion — or 88 per cent of all pledged capital. A record 165 projects were announced in 2024 alone.

Further, there has been a rise of megaprojects, with over 60 ventures exceeding $1 billion each in committed investment. This indicates a move toward establishing deep-rooted, long-term and large-scale industrial assets of energy transition technologies in host countries. The report suggests that these megaprojects are likely to exert increasing economic, industrial and environmental impacts on local development.

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