In the past 12 months, 44% of the world’s new shopping malls were built in China, according to commercial property agency CBRE. But with retailers renting less space, some malls are already struggling.

In the Zhongguancun area of Beijing, “China’s Silicon Valley”, the towering e-World mall closed its doors in February, reportedly to be turned into offices. Two malls nearby had already closed temporarily while the owners considered what to do to boost trade.

And yet the building continues. Some estimates predict another 7,000 new shopping malls will open in China by 2025. The top five most active cities in the world for retail development – all in China – each plan more than 20 new shopping malls. Amid such staggering supply, both new and old malls face huge challenges attracting retailers and shoppers.

But this is only one side of a complex market. Even with swathes of shopping malls teetering on the brink of collapse, entrepreneurial companies are drawing up blueprints for malls of the future: smart, connected complexes, where stores offer dynamic discounts, tills are redundant and real-time mapping traces your movements.

Retailers the world over have struggled to head off challenges from the internet. But in China, the retail market developed in parallel with e-commerce, and the threat looks very different. Enter the smart mall.

“One fundamental driving force that gives China an advantage in the development of ‘smart’ malls is that the fathers of the shopping mall business in China are alive now,” says Melanie Alshab, managing director of Kensington Asset Management. “They are the entrepreneurs, the visionaries – and they exist in the same time as all the things that are happening digitally. It’s a completely different mindset; there’s no block between the bricks and the clicks. It’s all just shopping.”

China’s smartphone users skipped the PC era, and many use their devices to go shopping: in 2014, total mobile payments in the country reached $965bn.“In the US, e-commerce is just online shopping. In China, e-commerce is a lifestyle,” explains Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce site Alibaba.

But how can online shopping revitalise physical malls? “Chinese consumers are more open to incorporating mobile technology into their physical shopping,” says Janne Haverinen, of technology group Indoor Atlas. “Most Chinese consumers experience online services for the first time through smartphones and mobile apps. This make O2O [online to offline] commerce, where technology is used to drive customers to physical shops, a trillion dollar opportunity.”