Chengdu powers up for high-quality development

Region has topped the list of China's Happiest Cities for 14 consecutive years

Chengdu in Sichuan province has boosted scientific and technological advances and industrial upgrading, having focused on high-end, intelligent and green transformation of the manufacturing industry to promote high-quality development of the national central city in western China.

The city has topped the list of China's Happiest Cities for 14 consecutive years with its slow pace of life, pandas, gourmet food, teahouses and greenways.

The second plenary session of the 14th Chengdu Party committee and the economic work conference of the city held recently reaffirmed that Chengdu is promoting the construction of a strong manufacturing city by building a modern industrial system with complete industrial chains in which key industries are playing an increasingly important role. Chengdu will combine its digitalization with the real economy to realize the goal.

"Little giant enterprises", or specialized and sophisticated technology enterprises producing unique and novel products, are a new force to promote the high-quality development of its manufacturing industry.

The latest data show that Chengdu has accumulatively cultivated 202 national "little giant enterprises", ranking it eighth in the country.

Chengdu CRP Robot Technology, which focuses on the field of robot manufacturing, is one of them.

Since its establishment in Chengdu 10 years ago, CRP moved from core components of robots and gradually developed into a supplier of complete sets of electrical solutions and intelligent robots.

Li Liangjun, chairman of CRP, said that the company controls half of the domestic industrial robot controller market and is one of the few domestic companies with an entire industrial chain of industrial robots.

In 2021, CRP's shipments of six-axis industrial robots below 20 kilograms ranked it first among domestic industrial robot brands, while ranking it the top five among global manufacturers.

Local officials said the city will cultivate more little giant enterprises and national single champion in manufacturing industry in the next step.

In line with the trend of industrial digitalization, Chengdu is promoting the deep integration of new generation of information technology and manufacturing industry and boosting the development of intelligent manufacturing.

Approved as a national new-generation artificial intelligence innovation and development pilot zone and the country's first 5G dual gigabit plus comprehensive commercial city, Chengdu is home to the only national industrial software collaborative research platform in western China.

In Xindu district in Chengdu, Micronet Union — an intelligent and secure connection service provider integrating R&D, production and service — and China Mobile jointly built the first 5G Smart Factory Demonstration Base in Sichuan, creating a new pattern of digital smart manufacturing.

The base has deployed multiple 5G smart applications such as industrial quality inspection, smart logistics, smart monitoring, 5G plus virtual reality teaching and product traceability.

It uses industrial internet and an integrated automated production line to realize smart manufacturing.

An executive of the company said the application of automation technology combined with 5G technology has equipped the factory with a "smart brain", making it a factory that can think for itself.

"The application of 5G in the microgrid smart factory has realized the automatic production of integrated circuits. The production efficiency has increased by 40 percent compared with the traditional process and the equipment failure rate has been reduced by more than 25 percent," he said.

Relying on the outstanding level of factory digitalization, Siemens' Chengdu branch was rated among the first batch of lighthouse factories in the world as early as 2018.

Li Yongli, chairman and general manager of Siemens Chengdu, said that through digital transformation, the company is becoming a smart factory and will be one of Siemens' largest operating factories across the globe in the next five years.

Chengdu is also boosting green and low-carbon industries such as photovoltaics, hydrogen energy, and lithium batteries amid China's promotion of carbon peak and carbon neutrality to promote comprehensive green and low-carbon transformation of economic and social development through industrial transformation.

Tongwei Group, which developed in Chengdu, is a global leader in the fields of high-purity crystalline silicon and solar cells.

Tongwei has built two high-efficiency crystalline silicon battery bases in Shuangliu and Jintang in Chengdu.

The Shuangliu base has been approved as a national smart and green factory. The Jintang base has become the first 5G application base in the global photovoltaic industry.

"Chengdu's green and low-carbon industry has broad prospects, which has strengthened Tongwei's confidence and determination to take root in the city and develop new energy," said Xie Yi, chairman and CEO of Tongwei.

Xie said that the company has formed a complete photovoltaic new energy industry chain and plans to build a 30 gigawatt high-efficiency photovoltaic module manufacturing base.

After completion, it will increase the output value by 50 billion yuan.

In the field of hydrogen energy, Chengdu has gathered high-level enterprises and scientific research institutions such as Dongfang Electric, Houpu and Sinoma Science and Technology and built a complete industrial chain of hydrogen energy.

For lithium batteries, Chengdu continues to attract investment from many leading companies such as CATL, BYD, CALB and EVE Energy, and has become one of the regions with the largest lithium battery manufacturing capacity in Southwest China.

After years of cultivation and development, Chengdu has built a relatively complete and comprehensive industrial system, forming two 1 trillion yuan industrial clusters of electronic information and equipment manufacturing, and eight 100-billion yuan characteristic and advantageous industrial clusters such as aerospace and high-end software.

Intel, IBM, Dell, Huawei and other Fortune Global 500 companies and internationally renowned enterprises have settled down in the city.

Chengdu will highlight the leading role of the new type industrialization to promote the high-end and transformation of its industries. It is striving to enhance the competitiveness, regional driving force and brand influence of its manufacturing industry and build into a pilot zone for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.

Chengdu will consolidate and improve the development advantages of its pillar industries, strengthen and cultivate strategic emerging industries, develop future industries such as artificial intelligence, gene therapy, new energy storage, and shape new advantages in industrial development.

At present, the twin-city economic circle in the Chengdu-Chongqing region has become another national development strategy after the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Chengdu, as a core of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, will usher in broader development opportunities for its manufacturing industry.