Simon Puebla (L) poses with Sun Bohao, founder of muShanghai, at the 28-day international tech festival in Shanghai's Hongqiao CBD. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
Editor's note:
MuShanghai, a 28-day international tech festival, was held in Shanghai's Hongqiao CBD from May 10 to June 6, 2026. Simon Puebla, an Argentine tech entrepreneur and co-founder & CBO of Anden, shares his experience.
What a week.
It's wild what the organizers of The Mu pulled together. An event packed with Chinese builders and internationals – all trying to connect, all speaking different languages, all chasing the same thing.
The conversation was fully focused on artificial intelligence. Nearly everyone you meet is managing 10 or 12 agents simultaneously, obsessed with how to keep building faster. But the talk doesn't stop there. Longevity. Peptides. How the body responds when you inject things meant to make it better. The future – and where it takes us – pulls everyone in.
What I enjoyed most was hearing how strong the appetite is for Latin America on this side of the world. Fastest-growing market. Most untapped potential. And when you say "Argentina", people's eyes light up. It's easy to forget that when you're back home.
Participants in the muShanghai exchange ideas at the Alibaba Hongqiao Center. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]
I had good conversations with companies exploring overseas expansion. We talked about what it actually means to want to build something – and how rare it is to find people genuinely chasing that. Not the version that talks about building. The version that does it.
A quick note on what I'm building
I'm building Anden, a compliance infrastructure company turning underused free trade zones in Latam into operational digital jurisdictions. Our first zone will launch in Q3 2026 in Argentina, built on top of two existing laws. The pitch has landed well with founders thinking about how to anchor international operations in a region growing fast but still poorly understood from this distance.
On Hongqiao
A snapshot of SkyBridge HQ in the Shanghai Hongqiao Linkong Business Park. [Photo/Invest Shanghai]
I lived in Beijing during my one year at Tsinghua University in 2018, so coming back to China felt familiar. But Hongqiao felt different. The density of business activity is inside this clearly defined international business corridor. The logistics that work. You feel it the moment you arrive – this is a serious place to do business.
What I didn't expect was the sharp curiosity about Latam from the people I met here. Investors, operators, and founders – asking specific questions about regulation, talent costs, and where Argentina fits. The kind of questions that come from people actually mapping a move.
Final thought
I left Shanghai thinking Anden has a real shot here. And I'm already thinking about when I can come back. If you're a founder looking at Latam – or just curious about what happens when Chinese builders and international founders share the same room – Hongqiao is the right place to start.
