NetEase Games set up operations in the Tianhe Science and Technology Industrial Park in Guangzhou in 2001, when the gaming industry was a focus of the industrial park.

In recent years, the NetEase headquarters also began operating in the Tianhe Intelligence Business District, which was built in the industrial park in 2012.

The first phase of the headquarters has been completed, receiving 500 million yuan ($78.32 million) in investment and covering an area of 37,000 square meters. The first phase consists of the NetEase Games headquarters and an industrial R&D center.

By the end of 2020, the center had produced content for more than 3,000 e-sports events and hosted over 200 e-sports events in Guangzhou.

The second-phase construction is now in full swing. With nearly 1.7 billion yuan in investment, it will cover an area of around 52,552 sq m and have a combined floor area of 172,000 sq m.

It is Guangzhou's openness and inclusiveness that have enabled NetEase to develop from scratch into the current international internet giant, said Ding Lei, CEO of NetEase.

The company's revenue reached 54.61 billion yuan in 2020 and had maintained quarterly revenue of over 10 billion yuan for 11 consecutive quarters by the end of 2020.

In the future, NetEase will cooperate with major e-sports clubs, live-stream platforms and brokers associations to hold the NeXT competition and key professional league projects such as Identity V and Fantastic Westward Journey.

It will also plan and establish a whole industrial chain that includes game R&D, event operation and broadcast production, helping boost the development of the gaming industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.