Another major internet company is establishing a presence in the Xiong'an New Area.

On June 21, PDD Holdings Inc formally signed an agreement with China Power Construction Group (PowerChina) to acquire an office building within the Xiong'an PowerChina Digital New Consumption E-commerce Industrial Park through an outright purchase. This marks the first time the company has purchased a property.

Initial Steps into Property Ownership

Since its official launch in September 2015, PDD Holdings Inc has grown to approximately 25,500 employees and generated over 430 billion yuan in revenue. However, it has consistently maintained a light-asset operational model, steadfastly avoiding property purchases or construction. Its current offices in locations such as the Golden Bridge International Center, Yifeng Center, Crystal Bridge, and DBS Bank Tower are all leased.

This principle of not building a headquarters, leasing scattered office spaces, and even renting core operational assets like servers and warehouses has been central to the company's strategy. This approach minimizes capital lock-up, allowing funds to be channeled into supply chain development, subsidies, and other operational areas to maintain high efficiency.

This time, however, the company has chosen to buy a building in Xiong'an, and the move was executed swiftly.

Rapid Establishment of Xiong'an Operations

On May 27, 2026, PDD Holdings Inc registered a new company in Xiong'an: Pinduoduo Information Technology Service (Xiong'an) Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 500 million yuan. The legal representative of this subsidiary is Yang Qingyong, a senior vice president at the group's Temu business unit. The supervisor is Zhu Zheng, the group's executive president and head of the new Pinmu business. The ultimate controller is Chen Lei, co-founder, co-chairman, and co-CEO of the group.

Yang Qingyong is a core mid-level executive responsible for domestic cross-border investment and government-enterprise cooperation. The newly established Xiong'an company, led by him, is positioned not for e-commerce transactions but to focus on big data processing, cloud platforms, digital operations and maintenance, platform compliance review, and technical outsourcing services. It serves as a strategic entity for the group's expansion into the national-level digital new area.

Simultaneous with the company's registration, PDD Holdings Inc began hiring, with the first batch of 150 employees officially starting on June 10. On June 16, Zhu Zheng led a delegation to Xiong'an for an inspection tour and signed a Digital Service Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement with the Xiong'an New Area Administrative Committee.

Zhu Zheng stated that the group would take root in and serve Xiong'an, increasing resource investment and industrial layout, actively exploring more cooperative potential, implementing more business scenarios, empowering the upstream and downstream industrial chain with digital technology, and building a modern, integrated supply chain system to contribute to the high-quality construction and development of the Xiong'an New Area.

Just five days after Zhu Zheng's visit, on June 21, the group completed the signing with China Power Construction Hebei Xiong'an Construction & Development Co., Ltd., officially announcing the building purchase.

Details of the New Office

The new office building in Xiong'an is 12 stories high and is one of the key themed buildings in the Xiong'an PowerChina Digital Intelligence Hub. It is equipped with a large conference center, a training center, and employee welfare facilities such as nursing rooms and leisure areas. It is expected to be officially operational by the end of July, with a canteen also in preparation.

The first batch of Xiong'an company employees are currently working in a temporary office space and will move into the new building upon its completion.

The new office building is located opposite the Xiong'an Outlets, with the Xiong'an Fund Industrial Park and the Impression Xiong'an scenic area just two streets away.

The company has indicated that the Xiong'an operation will eventually provide over 5,000 local jobs. Among the first 150 new employees, over 80% are from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, including fresh graduates from universities in Hebei. The comprehensive transportation network around the new office, connecting various parts of the Jing-Jin-Ji area, also creates convenient conditions for attracting diverse talent.

The total construction area of the PowerChina Xiong'an Digital Intelligence Hub project is approximately 1.66 million square meters. PDD Holdings Inc purchased one of the buildings (Nos. 1-4) in the Mingzhi Port West Zone, with market prices reportedly ranging from about 13,000 to 21,000 yuan per square meter. The park itself is positioned to become a "demonstration base for Hebei's e-commerce industry, a collaborative innovation headquarters for digital e-commerce in the Jing-Jin-Ji region, and a national-level benchmark park for the digital economy."

Unanswered Strategic Questions

Several questions arise from this move: Why has PDD Holdings Inc now decided to invest in property ownership, and why choose Xiong'an as the first location? The company previously had no major subsidiaries or branches in northern China. What strategic considerations underlie this decision? What preferential conditions, such as tax benefits or subsidies, did Xiong'an offer?

Inquiries were made to the company, but no official response beyond the information already provided was forthcoming.

Some speculate that the shift in strategy to invest in property and establish a new company might be related to a substantial fine of 1.522 billion yuan imposed on the company in April of this year. At that time, several major platforms were fined due to issues with "ghost kitchens" in food delivery services, with PDD Holdings Inc receiving the largest penalty among the seven platforms involved. The company has not commented on this speculation.