Industrial upgrade has 'boundless potential'

Chinese manufacturers should further strengthen innovation and accelerate breakthroughs in core technologies to drive industrial upgrading and move up the global value chain, said a national legislator and industry leader on the sidelines of the just-concluded annual two sessions in Beijing.

Jia Shaoqian, a deputy to the 14th National People's Congress and chairman of major home appliances manufacturer Hisense Group, said he has witnessed firsthand the historic shift of the Chinese manufacturing sector from long-term followers to global leaders.

"Since joining the group in 1997, I have seen how China's manufacturing industry has moved from trailing behind to running alongside global peers, and today in some areas even taking the lead," Jia said on the sidelines of the two sessions on Thursday.

"Everything ultimately comes down to innovation," Jia said.

Jia took the breakthroughs in the group's self-developed display chips as an example. Last year, Hisense introduced the world's first RGB light and color co-control Mini LED chip, which directly drives red, green and blue Mini LED backlight sources. The innovation addressed key technical bottlenecks such as efficiency, lifespan, color deviation and color purity of three-color LED chips.

Two months after Hisense unveiled the technology, Sony followed with plans to launch its flagship RGB-Mini LED television in 2026, while Toshiba and Samsung also signaled plans to introduce similar RGB Mini/Micro LED TVs.

"It is the growing number of global first launches and original innovations that have lifted Chinese manufacturing to a new level and allowed companies to taste the benefits of moving toward the higher end of the value chain," the NPC deputy said.

Jia said China's manufacturing sector is now at a critical stage of transformation and upgrading, with advantages emerging from both scale and core technology.

"The simultaneous rise in both scale and quality presents a major opportunity for the transformation of China's manufacturing industry," he said. "Especially, the application of AI represents a once-in-a-lifetime historical opportunity for the manufacturing sector."

At Hisense's lighthouse factory for central air conditioners in Qingdao, Shandong province, the company has used AI and automation to transform complex production processes. One example is the pipe insertion process, in which workers previously had to manually insert dozens of copper tubes into hundreds of aluminum foil holes with precision finer than a strand of hair.

By developing automated pipe-insertion equipment equipped with 17 high-precision cameras, 11 robots and AI algorithms that function as the "brain" for real-time decisionmaking, the task can now easily be solved by automated machines, Jia said.

Through the deep application of intelligent technologies, the factory has boosted product development speed by 37 percent, increased production efficiency by 49 percent, cut manufacturing costs by 35 percent and reduced energy consumption per product unit by 13 percent.

"This is precisely the boundless potential brought by the transformation from traditional 'Made in China' to 'Intelligent Manufacturing in China'," Jia said.

Looking ahead, Jia said the group will continue to strengthen the role of enterprises as the main drivers of technological innovation and accelerate the commercialization of research results.

Contact the writers at lijiaying@chinadaily.com.cn