China is stepping up its efforts, so announcing a long-awaited plan to link up its southern Pearl River Delta into a massive hub of technology, research, finance and innovation.

The possibilities and challenges of the project are both equally challenging and promising, according to analysts.

Some describe the plan as an attempt to create a mega-city to rival Silicon Valley, the U.S. technology powerhouse that is home to companies such as Google, Facebook, and Apple.

But while Silicon Valley has a population of 3.1 million, the Greater Bay Area will link up nine cities together with Hong Kong and Macau with a total population of about 70 million, and the economic heft, state media argues, to drive the Chinese economy, let alone the world.

The plan announced recently is expected to be a prominent topic during high-level political meetings going on this month in Beijing. It is not necessarily new. China’s opening up to the world more than four decades ago began in the south, and the Pearl River Delta has long been home to some of the country’s leading companies from telecommunications–such as Huawei to Internet giant Tencent and host of other technology and manufacturing enterprises.

It’s (the plan) a natural evolution of economic growth and the growth engine, said Adam Xu, partner at OC&C Strategy Consultants. If you really look at history in China, a lot of top down plans always have some bottom up support. A lot of economic activity has already happened there, then you have a grand plan to first officially recognize, then to promote and to further accelerate.

Xu said that as labor costs rise in China, the country is looking to move up the industrial value chain, and the program seeks to do just that to push the region on to the next wave, be it the manufacturing of electric cars, financial services or telecommunications.

China has already taken major strides to overcome some of the physical obstacles such as linking Hong Kong with Guangzhou and Shenzhou by high-speed rail and its recent opening of the 55-kilometer Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge.