Research, innovation pay dividends for city

The Zhongshan government and local enterprises have been attaching great importance to research and development and recognizing innovation during the past decade as the core of long-term sustainable development.

Now that approach has paid off.

Mingyang Smart Energy Group, headquartered in Zhongshan, has grown into an industry-leading renewable energy solution provider and a smart equipment manufacturer.

According to the latest Top 500 Chinese Enterprises ranking released by the Chinese Enterprise Confederation on September 6, Mingyang ranked 385th in terms of annual sales revenue, representing a rise of 37 places from last year.

Over the past few years, Mingyang has made breakthroughs in the development of key technologies including wind turbine generators and photovoltaic equipment, thanks to its steady efforts in promoting R&D along with technological upgrades.

To date, it has rolled off 12-megawatt typhoon-resistant hybrid-drive offshore wind turbines, one of the largest in the world, and also 16 MW wind turbines, one of the largest in terms of capacity in the world.

It also carried out static testing of it 111.5-meter typhoon-resistant blades. The 160-meter ultrahigh reinforced-concrete towers were introduced to the market and are set to drive large-scale, high-end and smart development in the wind power sector.

To support its innovation, Mingyang has developed a national technological center, an engineering lab jointly supported by national and local research institutes, led in part by Guangdong Wind Power Technological Engineering Lab and the Guangdong Engineering Center and Postdoctoral Researcher Work Station.

It also built an R&D system which could gain support from engineers in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Silicon Valley in the United States and Hamburg in Germany.

Mingyang is not the only enterprise in Zhongshan that actively embraces technology.

Licheng Detection and Certification Group, established in 2012, has become a leading privately-run testing and certification service provider in China.

Chen Xinwen, chairman of the group, said the enterprise attaches great significance to innovation and started projects to expand cooperation among industries, universities and research institutes.

It established long-term partnerships with South China Agriculture University and Jiangnan University to develop fast testing equipment and environmental monitoring systems. The company is also home to national small and medium-sized enterprise public service demonstration platforms, the Guangdong Engineering Center and Zhongshan Enterprise Technological Center. A postdoctoral research practice center was established in 2019.

So far, Licheng has registered 12 patents and took part in revisions of two international standards and three national standards.

Chen said the company will continue to invest in innovation by building high-end innovation platforms. It will also set up R&D and production facilities for biological diagnostic reagents and labs to test the effects of cosmetics.

Zhongshan identified innovation as the core of its development in 2015 and has been ramping up efforts to support businesses in recent years. The photon research center and Advanced Cryogenic Center were settled in Zhongshan, which contributed to the construction of the Zhongshan Technology Innovation Center.

More than 70 technology incubators had been established in Zhongshan by the end of September. A large number of research institutes were set up with leading universities including Wuhan University, South China University of Technology, and Intelligent Mobile Robot Research Institute (Zhongshan) and the Innovation Center of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Zhongshan).

"The local government has been attaching greater importance to innovation. Enterprises are investing in innovation and the overall environment is being optimized," said Huang Dehuang, assistant dean of the Zhongshan Research Institute of Beijing Institute of Technology. The institute was established in 2009 and is one of the first batch of research institutes set up by universities in Zhongshan.