Lian Zaohua, founder of Hontelcom Group that is into data security. [Photo by Yang Jun/China Daily]

These days it is drawing people from outside, he says. Having lived in Beijing for a decade prior, Guo was initially reluctant to be posted in Guiyang but the city has grown on him. The majority of employees in his office are local residents who are being trained by colleagues from Beijing or Shanghai.

Wanhua is a subsidiary of Beijing-based Tellhow Group Co Ltd. The parent is a well-known Chinese company with a range of interests from technology to energy.

Wanhua, which earned 120 million yuan last year, is currently helping the local government with real-time monitoring of construction sites to check pollution levels. It can tell if building materials such as bricks－having first met environmental requirements－are changed in the course of construction, by scanning two-dimensional stickers on them, Guo says.

Standing beside a huge screen showing different shots of Guiyang, he says among the company's other major projects is studying environmental conditions for the preservation of historical relics in Wuxi, a city on the lower Yangtze Delta in East China's Jiangsu province, where many artifacts from imperial China have been unearthed.

The average age of people working in Guiyang's data industry is 30, estimates Lian Zaohua, 41, the founder of Hontelcom Group, a company in the city that works on information security. Established in 2003, the group's main customers are government agencies and banks.

The city's low cost of living as compared with other capitals in China, is an added attraction, especially for young Chinese from outside the province. People in this sector make between 80,000 and 100,000 yuan a year, with monthly housing rents going up to 3,000 yuan.

Being in an inland province that is energy-rich, with relatively low costs of resources and labor, Guiyang is a suitable choice as a potential data hub, according to both Lian and Guo.