As China's economic reform and opening-up policy started to unfold, a group of domestic technology companies including Stone Group, Founder Group and Lenovo Group became established in subsequent years.
In the early days of Zhongguancun, many of the companies in the area had close connections with the country's academic world.
For example, Founder is a technology company that was spun off from Peking University. Lenovo Group was spun off from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Liu Chuanzhi, a former researcher at CAS, later led Lenovo's purchase of IBM's personal computer division for $1.75 billion in 2005.
"In China, you can't find another place like Zhongguancun that is so close to the country's technology academia. So when China started to encourage the commercialization of technology after the economic reforms of the 1980s, Zhongguancun became the first place to exploit the opportunity," said Xia Yingqi, former deputy director of the administrative committee of Zhongguancun Science Park.
He said it is Zhongguancun's close connections with China's technology academies that made Zhongguancun become China's most influential innovation center in the next decades.
Unlike many other government-funded high-tech parks, the establishment of Zhongguancun came about as a result of market forces, something unique in China's rigid planning system at that time.
As late as 1988, Zhongguancun was officially recognized by the central government and was given the name "Beijing High-Technology Industry Development Experimental Zone". After that, the administrative committee of Zhongguancun Science Park was established to help coordinate with and service the companies in Zhongguancun.
Since its inception, the Zhongguancun administrative committee has followed a strict policy of not interfering in companies that they serve.