On November 26, the first China Songshan Lake New Materials Forum was opened in Songshan Lake, Dongguan. The forum aimed to build a “research-industry-capital” dialogue platform. The platform is expected to promote efficient alignment of research, industry and capital, share leading research results in the new materials industry, improve the transfer rate of research results, and contribute to the country’s innovation-driven development strategy.
The forum was hosted by the State Development & Investment Corp., Ltd., the People’s Government of Dongguan Municipality, the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and cohosted by China SDIC Gaoxin Industrial Investment Corp. Ltd., SDIC Unity Capital Co., Ltd., and the Management Committee of Songshan Lake Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone.
The forum was attended by Bai Tao, Secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group and President of SDIC, Yuan Baocheng, Vice President of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Liang Weidong, Secretary of Dongguan CPC Municipal Committee and Chairman of the Standing Committee of Dongguan Municipal People’s Congress, Gao Hongjun, Fellow and Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Deputy Director of the Academic Committee of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Wang Enge, Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and President of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Wang Weihua, Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Xu Wenwei, Huawei’s Director of the Board and President of the Institute of Strategic Research, Zhong Guodong, Member of the Leading Party Members’ Group and Vice General Manager of SDIC, Yu Wei, Vice Director and Level I Inspector of the Raw Materials Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Lei Peng, Vice Director of the High-tech Development and Industrialization Department of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Luo Han, former President of the Supervisory Board of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, and Wu Weiwei, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of SDIC Gaoxin.
In addition, the forum was also attended by more than 300 guests from the government, enterprises, research institutes and media. They conducted discussion on topics such as the latest research results of new materials, industry nurturing path and future development trend from several dimensions such as research, industry and capital.
Bai Tao, Secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group and President of SDIC, expressed in his speech delivered at the forum that self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology has been regarded as the strategic support for the country’s development at the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the CPC. How to master core technology through innovation remains a major subject to be addressed. In recent years, the SDIC has participated in the establishment of more than 20 sub-funds in the field of new materials, invested in more than 200 enterprises and supported a batch of professional investment institutions specialized in the field of new materials. Looking ahead to the 14th Five-Year Plan, the SDIC will strive to be a professional in the strategic emerging industry, particularly in the new materials industry, and actively nurture hidden champions with critically original technologies, and features of “specialized, sophisticated, special and new” so as to make contributions to strengthening stability and competitiveness of the industrial and supply chains. It is hoped that through this forum, the respective role of instruction by the government, driving by capital, transfer of research, and innovation of enterprises can be fully leveraged to direct China’s new materials industry onto the path of high-end development.
Yuan Baocheng, Vice President of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, pointed out in his address that Guangdong’s new materials industry now takes up a size of 50 billion yuan and is expected to reach 100 billion yuan by 2025 according to the plan for new materials industry launched by the government. He believed that whoever masters materials has a say in the future, Guangdong encourages teams and individuals from across the country and the world engaged in raw materials and investment and with positive influence on the future development of Guangdong to play an active part in the future development of Guangdong.
Liang Weidong, Secretary of Dongguan CPC Municipal Committee and Chairman of the Standing Committee of Dongguan Municipal People’s Congress, mentioned in his speech that located in the center of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Dongguan has formed a relatively complete manufacturing industry system that covers over 30 industries and 60,000 products. In the future, based on the industrial chains, Dongguan will deploy innovation chain accordingly, and vice versa. Dependent on major innovation platforms such as Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan will accelerate building four innovation systems, namely, source innovation, technology innovation, results transfer, and nurturing of technology enterprises. It will endeavor to develop strategic emerging industries such as new materials, and accelerate transfer of technology results to actual productivity and building an advanced manufacturing city.
Wang Enge, President of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, expressed in his speech that the 14th Five-Year Plan has clearly pointed out nine major strategic emerging industries including new materials. The next five years will mark the great revolution and development for new materials. During this process, the key lies in how to realize transfer of technology results to products and to commodities. The Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory is carrying the mission of exploring a new pattern for transfer of research results and a new path. It is hoped that through this forum, the research-industry-capital will draw various advantages to jointly advance seamless and targeted alignment of innovation chain, industrial chain and capital chain to facilitate transfer and industrialization of more technology results.
Yu Wei, Vice Director and Level I Inspector of the Raw Materials Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, expressed that the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council attach great importance to the development of the new materials industry. In recent years, the Raw Materials Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been working with relevant departments to advance construction of an ecosystem for the development of new materials, promote application and nurture a market environment conducive to innovation. Certain results have been achieved in the above efforts. As China is about to embark on the new journey of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the Raw Materials Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will study and formulate its own development plan during the 14th Five-Year Plan to ensure a top-level design for high-quality development of raw materials.
The signing ceremony
The launching ceremony
A signing ceremony for the SDIC Songshan Lake New Materials Venture Capital Fund was also hosted in this forum. The fund is mainly targeted at the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory and important projects of Dongguan and the Greater Bay Area at large. Investment will mainly be made in frontier new materials and relevant fields to help resolve bottlenecks in transfer of basic research and industry settlement. Guided by fund investment, industrialization settlement of prospecting new products and new technologies can be accelerated. Moreover, the national new materials venture capital service alliance was also launched during the opening ceremony.
Gao Hongjun, Fellow and Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Deputy Director of the Academic Committee of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, delivered a speech entitled “Atomic Level Targeted Structure and Its Physics Research of Functional Nanostructure”. Through efforts in the past ten years and more, the team has found a key path for precise control of high-quality graphene functional nanostructure through the technology of atomic level precise control materials. A large area of graphene with high quality and perfection had been acquired.
Zhong Guodong, Member of the Leading Party Members’ Group and Vice General Manager of SDIC, delivered a speech entitled “Integration of Capital and Technology to Boost Development of New Materials Industry”, in which he pointed out that China boasts huge potential in the market of new materials and the capital market has a long-term optimistic view on the development of the new materials industry. The SDIC has deployed strategically in multiple fields related to materials. He said that market demand should be the orientation and opportunities should be found in a market that generates increased consumption; emphasis should be placed on early and middle stages of investment to plan for investment in the next five to ten years; efforts should be made to solve problems and realize independence and controllability in the key areas.
Xu Wenwei, Huawei’s Director of the Board and President of the Institute of Strategic Research, gave a speech entitled “From Innovation to Invention”. He believed that high degree of integration of research, capital and industry is essential to the transformation from innovation to invention. Materials constitute the foundation for the revolution of next generation of technology. Huawei will conduct comprehensive innovation and upgrading to realize transformation from the Innovation 1.0 era based on technology, engineer, product and solution based on customer demand to the Innovation 2.0 era based on vision-driven theoretical breakthrough and fundamental technology invention. To develop fundamental technology, basic research should be placed at the core and open innovation should be pursued. Xu Wenwei also mentioned that Huawei will strive to jointly lead the innovation and development of new materials by taking stock of problems facing the industry, thoughts of the academia, and concepts of venture capital.
With regard to how to build a “research-industry-capital” dialogue platform, in-depth dialogue was carried out from the perspective of research institutions, government and enterprises by guests such as Wang Enge, President of the Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Ouyang Nanjiang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Working Committee and Director of the Management Committee of Songshan Lake, Huang Changgeng, President of Xiamen Tungsten Co., Ltd., Liu Wei, General Manager of SDIC Unity Capital Co., Ltd., and Caroline Fu, Managing Director of Sequoia Capital China. They talked about coordinated development of industrial chains and real economy driven by innovation.
As a bridge facilitating alignment of research, industry and capital, the forum focused on the development frontier of the new materials industry. Three sub-forums were specially hosted on the afternoon of November 26, namely the Third Generation of Semiconductor Materials Forum, Ceramic New Materials Forum and Nano and Micro Materials Forum. Nearly 20 A-list experts from across the country, based on the latest innovation results, took turn to share the newest progress and future application trend in their corresponding fields.
During this forum, two project roadshow events will also be specially hosted on November 27 to establish a platform for smooth alignment of extraordinary innovation results with industry and capital and to fuel industrialization. Representatives from 16 innovative enterprises from across the country will collectively display a batch of results with prominent technology advantages such as porous media burner technology and thermal equipment, deep ultraviolet LED luminescent materials and components, silicon-based heteroepitaxial wafer and silicon-based laser, flexible battery, and ultrafast laser micro-processing equipment.