In Beijing's Zhongguancun district, known as "China's Silicon Valley," a rush by artificial intelligence and Big Tech companies to expand office footprints has driven the Grade A office vacancy rate down to 8.2% in the second quarter, a plunge of nearly 6 percentage points from over 14% at the end of last year, according to a Knight Frank report cited by the South China Morning Post on July 11. The average monthly rent for Grade A offices in Zhongguancun reached 251.4 yuan per square meter in Q2, up 0.3% from the previous quarter, the second-highest level in Beijing behind Financial Street. In contrast, the citywide average vacancy rate edged up 0.1 percentage points to 15.9%. Major companies leasing additional space in Q2 include ByteDance, DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, RankComputing, and XuanMiao. The TMT sector accounted for 49% of Beijing's office leasing activity in Q2, while the financial sector represented just 17%. A Knight Frank representative said this year "marks the arrival of the AI super cycle," with leasing demand expected to accelerate over the next three to five years. However, the report noted a full-fledged turnaround for Beijing's broader office market is unlikely until late 2029 or early 2030.