Education used to be simple: there was a blackboard, a teacher and desks in a classroom. Today, a student can practice English online, upload homework through a portal and learn chemistry through 3D immersion — such is the rise of educational technologies. And nowhere is the advent of edtech climbing more quickly than in Asia.

In 2016, global investments in Chinese edtech companies rose to $1.2 billion, according to Goldman Sachs. Going forward, the edtech industry in China is expected to grow 20 percent annually.

It could come down to a numbers game. The Asian education system is the biggest in the world: more than 600 million students are enrolled in K-12 schools in Asia, a figure that positively eclipses that of the U.S. by a magnitude of 10. In this education-fixated atmosphere, Asian massive open online courses (MOOCs) in particular have enjoyed immense success.

China recently crossed the 50 percent threshold; more precisely, 53.1 percent of its population is now online, which equates to 731 million Chinese internet users. As Jon Russell notes, that’s almost on par with the entire population of Europe. This is welcome news as Asian edtech innovates and crosses roads with hot tech industries such as gaming, VR and AR in the future.

It should come as no surprise that major investors are paying close attention to the developments in Asian edtech — and taking action. Key foreign players are coming into the market and funneling capital into the region to support edtech, from Goldman Sachs to Times Internet.

Read the full article about education technology globally by Emmanual Nataf at TechCrunch.