2 | Friday, December 28, 2018 CHINA DAILY PAGE TWO FIRST PERSON Innovation center shines as Boss who returned to beacon for Yangtze River Delta China hails By ZHOU WENTING Breakthroughs made in batteries for new energy vehicles by private or public investment. progress [email protected] Lyu said the institute has close connections with the 12 CAS bran­ A business incubation center in ches in Shanghai, where 13 key made in Ningbo city, Zhejiang province, is State laboratories and more than making giant strides in increasing 500 new research and develop­ the power density and lifetime of ment projects are set up annually. Zhejiang lithium batteries used in new ener­ “In the first half of this year, we gy vehicles. invited 35 senior CAS experts from Most of these vehicles use batter­ branches in Shanghai to our insti­ Jin Xing, chairman of Zheji­ ies with an energy density of 200 tute, and two contracts for joint ang Autorock, a company spe­ watt­hours per kilogram, while venture projects were signed,” he cializing in the research and those used by Tesla are the best on added. development and production of the market and capable of deliver­ You Jianhong, assistant to the liquid crystal auto panel boards ing 250 W.h/kg. director of the institute, said such But the Ningbo platform has pro­ collaboration and transformation aving obtained per­ duced batteries with an impressive has also spurred local economic manent residency 301 W.h/kg. development. and a decent income They contain graphene, weigh “Last year, the institute saw out­ in the Netherlands less than others but can achieve the put value of more than 20 billion Hafter working there for more same mileage. The batteries will yuan ($2.9 billion) and tax revenue than a decade, I decided to soon be used for tests on cars pro­ for Jiaxing that exceeded 1.7 billion return to China, hoping to take duced by Geely, according to the yuan,” he said. research results out of the labo­ Ningbo Graphene Innovation Cen­ Huang Zhengren, director of ratories and apply them to peo­ ter in Zhejiang. Geely is a Chinese the Ningbo Institute of Materials ple’s daily lives. multinational automotive manu­ Technology and Engineering, I worked at the Shanghai facturing company with headquar­ affiliated to CAS, said one of the Institute of Microsystem and ters in Hangzhou, capital of reasons the institute was estab­ Information Technology, affiliat­ Zhejiang. lished in Ningbo was because ed to the Chinese Academy of The use of graphene can boost industrial production materials Sciences, for three years from the power density the amount of account for a large proportion of 2011 before resigning to estab­ power per unit volume and the city’s industries. lish my own business. endurance of a lithium battery, “At the same time, the institute The company was formed in which will solve the problem of low has an enormous network, includ­ Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang mileage in new energy vehicles, the ing the other CAS branches and province, in 2014. It is a joint center said. complete industrial chains within venture set up by the Shanghai Zhou Xufeng, a professor with the delta, as support,” he said. Institute of Microsystem and the Advanced Lithium­ion Battery Huang added that its clients Information Technology, Engineering Lab at the Ningbo include the Shanghai Microsatel­ Hangzhou Linjiang Investment Institute of Materials Technology lite Engineering Center, the Gener­ Development Co and my entre­ and Engineering affiliated to the al Electric Co and other private preneurial team. Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, enterprises throughout the delta “We aim to mass produce batteries region. of 500 W.h/kg for automobiles between 2025 and 2030.” Advanced traffic network The institute, together with lead­ Experts said the area’s advanced ing enterprises in the domestic gra­ traffic network is one important phene industry and other factor that has enabled researchers companies, founded the innova­ and entrepreneurs to integrate sci­ tion center last year. entific research and innovation in The center said strong scientific different places within the region research backing from Shanghai, and achieve product break­ market demand in Zhejiang and throughs. beyond, and robust capital support Luo Dajin, deputy director of the made it possible for it to produce LI MIN / CHINA DAILY Shanghai Municipal Science and such eye­catching results in such a Technology Commission, said 18 short time. high­speed rail lines operate in the It is also committed to achieving Expert stresses ‘core city’ route for Shanghai region, making it the country’s most breakthroughs in key technologies developed area in this form of trans­ in the graphene industry and has Further integrated development of “But the ratio for Shanghai is lower that such a route is in line with the portation. Looking back on produced and applied graphene in the Yangtze River Delta region will help than 4 percent — a staggering distance development of other world­class According to the China Railway the fields of materials plastics and Shanghai better play a leading role in behind its foreign counterparts,” Zhang urban centers, such as New York, Lon­ Shanghai Group, 34 of the 41 cities the five years of fibers, health products and weara­ the area and even the entire country, said during the form at Fudan University. don and Tokyo. in the region have high­speed rail development, I ble devices. according to an expert. “Moreover, the proportion of For­ Shanghai is at a stage where its divi­ links, and the construction of rail­ Experts said the center epitomi­ Despite its size, Shanghai still trails tune 500 companies headquartered sion of functions with neighboring ways within the region will be main­ believe that these zes the rich and diversified resour­ many of its overseas counterparts in in Shanghai is only 10 percent of that smaller cities has been established and tained at a high level this year. features made the ces of the Yangtze River Delta terms of its function and contribution, in New York. Expatriates account for traditional industries are being trans­ Investment in these railways in the region, and the area’s high interna­ experts said at the Yangtze River Devel­ just 0.9 percent of Shanghai’s per­ ferred outside the city, Zhang said. area accounted for one­sixth of the startup boom tional profile is making it a heart­ opment Think Tank Forum held in manent residents, while the propor­ “What is expected in the next stage, national total this year. possible and made land for scientific research in Shanghai late last month. tion for an international metropolis is based on the experience of other Luo said that last year more than it difficult to be China. Zhang Haohan, Party chief of the usually 10 percent,” he added. urban centers, is that the city cluster 28 million trips were made on pub­ Chen Yubo, a professor with the Jiangsu Federation of Social Science Zhang said a “reasonable way” for will lead development of the country’s lic transportation in 20 of the replicated School of Economics and Manage­ Association and director of the Yangtze Shanghai to improve its function is to other city clusters. At the same time, region’s cities, including those in elsewhere.” ment at Tsinghua University in River Delta Regional Joint Research emphasize the construction of the the core city with its outperforming Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces Beijing, said, “Basically, Shanghai, Center, said New York contributes 24 “core city” while integrating the Yang­ comprehensive and international ser­ and Shanghai, by using travel cards Jin Xing, chairman of the core city in the urban clusters percent of the United States’ GDP, tze River Delta region to make the vice functions will play a bigger leading from other cities in the delta Zhejiang Autorock in the delta region, provides intel­ Tokyo 26 percent of Japan’s, London development of Shanghai and the rest role,” he said. region. lectual support, and the vast mar­ 22 percent of the United Kingdom’s, of the delta mutually beneficial. “The figure accounted for 80 per­ I chose Zhejiang because of ket demand and capital and Seoul 26 percent of South Korea’s. Zhang said his research showed — ZHOU WENTING cent of country’s total for such pay­ the widespread scientific enthusiasm in the other cities ments, which illustrates the greater research collaboration within offer potential for industrializa­ flow of people within the delta the Yangtze River Delta tion. Jiangsu Federation of Social Sci­ ble role in the many scientific cal achievements that can be indus­ region,” he said. region, the deep­rooted envi­ “Meanwhile, different cities in ence Association and director of breakthroughs and their applica­ trialized, Jiaxing can provide the Yu Weiguo, director of the Jiaxing ronment for entrepreneurship the delta region have their indi­ the Yangtze River Delta Regional tions in the delta region. The insti­ platform to transform research Optoelectronic Engineering Center and the talent reservoir in vidual industrial strengths — for Joint Research Center, said, “In the tute is responsible to the academy. results, and the technologies can be at CAS, said he had traveled fre­ neighboring Shanghai. example, manufacturing in Suz­ light of Xi’s strategic requirements “Private business is being devel­ exported to the delta and the coun­ quently between Jiaxing and Shang­ Last year, the Zhejiang gov­ hou (Jiangsu province) and soft­ and the report of the 19th National oped in the delta region, but it is a try,” he said. hai for project collaboration since ernment listed integrated cir­ ware for Hangzhou, which Congress of the Communist Party part of the grassroots economy and Lyu added that 24 projects in taking up his job in 2013.