Key partnerships boost innovation hub's global role

By Song Memgxing | China Daily | Updated: 2017-10-20 07:39

Chengdu is building out its international innovation and communication platforms, and is integrating into the global innovation system, according to local officials.

The Medtronic Innovation Center (Chengdu) hosted its groundbreaking ceremony in the Chengdu Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone on Oct 10. As the global medical treatment giant's third project in the zone, it will be a comprehensive clinical training center for multidisciplinary medical technology and help to improve medical services in central and western China.

The center will offer diagnosis and treatment training, covering subjects such as surgery, intensive care, internal medicine and anesthesia, and fields including angiocarpy, tumors, the nervous system, the stomach, intestines and kidney.

Chris Lee, president of Medtronic Greater China, said that the company values the Chinese medical market as it is filled with opportunities.

With the birth of the Chengdu Medtronic center, the company will have more resources to encourage industry participants in central and western regions to join in key aspects of medical treatment and public health, Lee said.

Medtronic predicts it can train about 7,000 medical professionals annually in five years after the Chengdu center is put into use.

In Chengdu's industrial development white paper released in July, the biological industry is listed among the city's prioritized strategic emerging sectors.

Carnegie Mellon University, located in Pittsburgh of the United States, has attracted many professionals in the artificial intelligence field and offers pioneering artificial intelligence studies.

The university announced on Sept 4 that its first research institute in China would be set up in the Chengdu Hitech Industrial Development Zone. The two sides signed a memorandum of cooperation with a third partner to work together on smart infrastructure technology and commercialization.

The university will provide the institute in Chengdu with mechanisms, management, techniques, professionals, capital and brands, and will invite eight Nobel Prize winners to join in.

The Chengdu high-tech zone signed an agreement with Siemens on Aug 4 to build the company's industrial software research and development center, as well as its intelligent manufacturing innovation center in Chengdu. The two projects involved a total of 1 billion yuan in investment.

The R&D center will help to promote Chengdu's advances in intelligent manufacturing fields such as the cloud, the internet of things and big data.

The intelligent manufacturing innovation center comprises a capability center, a laboratory, a solution research center and a training platform for professionals. It aims to offer open innovation services for improving manufacturing digitization in Sichuan.

In the laboratory, visitors can enter 11 professional laboratories, including an advanced manufacturing equipment R&D lab, a quality management lab and a virtual test lab.

The solution research center involves six important sectors including electronic information, aeronautical equipment, biological medicine and also automobiles and parts. The intelligent manufacturing innovation center also plans to develop curriculum and certification systems to train experts who know both the product process and key technologies of digitized factories in a bid to increase the city's international influence.