From the birth of China's first practical optical fiber, the first optical transmission system, the first optical communication international standard, to the world's first 128-layer QLC memory chip, the first to launch the mainland's first 400G silicon optical module, the largest power 100,000 watt fiber laser, the first 40nm Beidou intelligent chip that can be mass-produced, the first flexible folding display production line... 1.2 million "chasing people" gathered in Wuhan Optics Valley, relying on the determination of independent innovation, to overcome one "stuck neck" technology after another in the field of optoelectronic information industry, and achieved multiple leaps from 0 to 1 to N.
According to the statistics of the First Finance and Economics New First-tier Cities Research Institute, as the birthplace of China's laser industry, Optics Valley has gathered 7 tens of billions of manufacturing enterprises, 10 national manufacturing "single champions", 60 national specialized and special new "little giants", is the highest concentration of domestic optical communication and laser enterprises in the region, emerging China Information and Communications Technology, Huagong Technology, Changfei optical fiber, Gaode infrared and other industry leading enterprises, forming more than 3,000 independent brands with industry influence. Last year, the overall scale of the optoelectronic information industry exceeded 500 billion yuan, and the number of enterprises reached 127,000.
Recently, the first financial reporter Optics Valley found that the independent innovation achievements of breaking foreign monopolies, realizing domestic substitution, and leading the world in technical strength have demonstrated Optics Valley's "unique" leading advantages in the field of global optoelectronic information, and there is still room for improvement and improvement in the venture capital and financing environment, the output efficiency of scientific and technological achievements, and the idea of attracting investment.
The road to counterattack
Wuhan Optics Valley is now leading in the field of optoelectronic information, behind which it has experienced a counterattack road from introduction, digestion, absorption, innovation, and then independent innovation and external export.
In 1970, the world's first optical fiber was born in the United States. Six years later, in a simple laboratory at the foot of Wuhan's Nanwang Mountain on the other side of the ocean, a young man named Zhao Zisen used the most basic raw materials such as alcohol lamps, oxygen, and silicon tetrachloride to pull a "glass filament" with a length of 17 meters, and the first quartz optical fiber in the mainland was born.
Also in the 70s of last century, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (formerly Huazhong Institute of Technology) set up a laser research group, opening the prelude to China's laser technology research and development. By the early 80s of last century, the laser technology of Huazhong Institute of Technology had been in the leading position in the country.
Whether it is optical fiber and cable, or laser equipment, at that time, the products in these domestic laboratories were industrialized, and there were problems of difficulty and high cost of mass production, and only foreign advanced technology could be introduced. But it is not easy to let foreigners transfer core technology, taking optical fiber technology as an example, at that time in many countries walked around, and finally Philips of the Netherlands was willing to transfer core technology to China.
In May 1988, with the imprint of the era of "exchanging market for technology", Changfei Optical Fiber and Cable Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Changfei Optical Fiber") was established by the former Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Wuhan Municipal Government and Philips of the Netherlands, becoming the first Sino-foreign joint venture established in China's optical communication industry.
However, Changfei Optical Fiber starts from "zero", and equipment, technology, spare parts and raw materials must be imported from abroad. To replace a certain spare part, it needs to be planned several months in advance, which is costly and has a long cycle. Subject to people's taste, it is impossible to rely on the market to "exchange" key technologies, and we must engage in independent research and development and master key technologies in our own hands.
In 2001, Changfei Fiber set up a special R&D center. Since then, regardless of the market and the ups and downs of the industry cycle, Changfei Fiber has maintained a research and development investment of no less than 5% of sales revenue every year.
In the past 35 years, Changfei optical fiber has mastered the technology in its own hands from the localization of raw materials, the localization of parts, and the localization of equipment, realizing the localization of the whole chain from preforms to optical fiber and cables, and through technology introduction, digestion, absorption and re-innovation, "Philips by the Yangtze River" counterattacked to become "the world's Changfei".
Zhuang Dan, executive director and president of Changfei Optical Fiber, introduced that Changfei is the only optical fiber cable manufacturer in the world that masters the three mainstream preform preparation technologies of PCVD, VAD and OVD, and the single rod drawing length of the optical fiber preform has reached 10,000 kilometers, which is the highest level in the industry in the world, and has ranked first in the world in terms of optical fiber preform, optical fiber and optical cable sales for 7 consecutive years.
"At that time, I just hoped that China could have its own optical fiber communication, but I did not expect that now China has become a world optical fiber power." Zhao Zisen, the "father of optical fiber in China" and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in an interview with the media before his death, "My dream has been overfulfilled." ”
In Optics Valley, there are many more such counterattack stories.
Since its establishment more than 20 years ago, Huagong Technology has grown from a school-run enterprise with a sales scale of less than 70 million yuan to a pioneer in the industrialization of achievements in Chinese universities with an annual revenue of more than 12 billion yuan; From the beginning of its establishment, most of the main equipment relied on imports, and developed to the core products exported to overseas high-end markets with an annual growth rate of more than 40%. With continuous investment in technology, intelligence and talents, Huagong Technology has created more than 60 domestic firsts and won the global industry discourse power for China Laser.
At one time, imported fiber lasers occupied 80% of China's market share, and a 10,000-watt fiber laser was sold up to 7 million yuan. In 2013, the mainland's first 10,000-watt continuous fiber laser was born in Ruike Laser, ending the history of mainland inability to independently develop high-power fiber lasers. After many years of following, China's fiber lasers have finally achieved parallel running with the world.
……
In 1988, when the East Lake New Technology Development Zone, the predecessor of Optics Valley, was established, it was a "projectile land" of only 24 square kilometers 2 centimeters outside the built-up area of Wuhan map. Today, Optics Valley has been reborn, growing into the world's largest optical fiber and cable research base, the largest optical device R & D and production base in China, the largest domestic laser industry base, Optics Valley fiber optic cable accounts for 66% of the national market, 25% of the international market, the world's first sales volume, gathering more than 300 well-known laser enterprises, laser industry domestic market share of more than 50% for 11 consecutive years.
A change in blending
Gu Ying, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Chinese Optical Society, predicts that optoelectronic information technology in the era of change is changing with each passing day, and the trend of networking, intelligence and integration is becoming increasingly obvious, constantly changing people's work and life. In aerospace, automobile driving, medical and health, integrated circuits and other industries, there will be more optoelectronic cutting-edge innovative technologies and application scenarios emerged, and new products will grow explosively.
Cheng Gang, a system engineer who has been engaged in lidar research and development in science and technology factories in Shenzhen and Hangzhou for a long time, also smelled new opportunities.
"From a technical point of view, lidar systems have the advantages of long range, excellent angular resolution, and little influence by ambient lighting, and will have broader application scenarios than cameras in the future." At that time, the domestic market had not yet developed and had social value, and I felt that this was an opportunity to set off a visual revolution. Cheng Gang told the first financial reporter that when he had the idea of starting a business, he chose the location of entrepreneurship in Optics Valley, "Optics Valley is the birthplace of China's laser industry and the largest laser equipment manufacturing base in China, where laser talent reserves are abundant and upstream and downstream enterprises gather." It is no exaggeration to say that you can easily find suppliers and downstream customers that are suitable for you without leaving the office building. ”
In October 2019, under the leadership of Cheng Gang, dozens of professional and technical talents from well-known universities and scientific research institutions at home and abroad gathered together to establish Tianyan Optoelectronics in Optics Valley, focusing on the research and development and sales of lidar scanning imaging and ranging products related to intelligent networked vehicles.
Cheng Gang, the current CEO of Tianyan Optoelectronics, said that the development of domestic new energy vehicles and autonomous driving has advanced by leaps and bounds, in Europe and the United States, new energy vehicles are usually updated once in 3~5 years, while China's new energy vehicle manufacturers can launch multiple versions within a year, and a higher level of downstream demand forces the change of domestic lidar technology and the development of the industry. The most significant change is that in the past three years, the market share of global lidar products has undergone a revolutionary transformation, from the majority of American products to the "world" of Chinese enterprises.
In May this year, Tianyan Optoelectronics completed a pre-A round of financing of nearly 100 million yuan. At the same time, Optics Valley also mentioned in the "goals for the next decade" to accelerate the promotion of "optical vehicle linkage", focusing on the five key areas of "sense (perception system) core (vehicle chip), soft (software computing) graph (navigation and positioning) cabin (intelligent cockpit)", and creating an intelligent network industry ecology with Optics Valley characteristics.
"The company's new track-level 128-line lidar launched this year can perform high-precision three-dimensional scanning of the driving environment within 200 meters in front of the car, transmit 20 pictures back in one second, and the detection accuracy reaches 2 centimeters, which can be widely used in the autonomous driving industry." Cheng Gang predicts that only self-driving logistics and distribution vehicles will form a market scale of hundreds of billions in two years, and the demand for lidar will usher in a spurt of growth.
The story from 0 to 1 to N also happened in the field of Beidou navigation chips. At the beginning of 2009, Han Shaowei, former vice president of SiRF in the United States, returned to China to start a business, and in 2014, Mengxin Technology was established in Wuhan to start the research and development of civilian high-precision Beidou navigation and positioning chips.
At that time, domestic satellite navigation chip products were still stuck at the process level of 55 nanometers or lower. After about 14 months of tough battles, Mengxin Technology has developed the first 40nm process mass production Beidou navigation and positioning chip "Qimeng MXT2702", which is equivalent to realizing nearly 10 million computing and storage units on a silicon body the size of a 1/5 dime coin, which can quickly and accurately locate in complex environments and meet the needs of various navigation and positioning products.
In 2017, Qimeng Beidou high-precision chip achieved mass production, which is the world's first time to integrate high-precision technology and miniaturized low-power chips in the two fields of innovation, taking into account the characteristics of high-precision RTK and low power consumption, greatly reducing product power consumption and area while achieving stable and high-precision positioning at the centimeter/millimeter level, and achieving million-level annual shipments, which greatly promoted the comprehensive promotion of Beidou's high-precision market application.
"Before 2017, imported high-precision receivers cost $20,000 each, annual global shipments did not exceed 100,000 units, and the cost of domestic equipment also required tens of thousands of yuan; Now, Mengxin Technology has reduced the cost of domestic high-precision receivers to a few thousand yuan / unit. Yin Nan, secretary of the board of directors of Mengxin Technology, introduced that at present, Mengxin Technology's products have been widely used in many fields such as safety monitoring, smart agriculture, transportation, intelligent driving, energy and power, communication infrastructure, and smart campus. Among them, the market share in emerging high-precision applications such as disaster monitoring and shared mobility has exceeded 50%.
In order to encourage upstream and downstream enterprises in the optoelectronic information industry chain to break through new application fields, some industry leaders are also willing to be the "angel customers" of the enterprises on the chain, exploring the collaborative innovation road of "chain leader" coordination, "chain master" questioning, and "chain creation" answering questions.
In 2018, the fledgling Huari Laser did not win an order for a long time. Huagong Laser is also deeply troubled by the high price and long delivery time of foreign manufacturers, and urgently needs to seek domestic replacement of lasers.
In order to solve the "stuck neck problem" of core lasers subject to people, Huagong Laser took the initiative to find Huari Laser and placed an order for 60 picosecond ultraviolet lasers at one time, thus becoming the first "angel customer" of Huari Laser.
"From the initial 60 units to the stable purchase of more than 200 units per year, we have witnessed the gradual expansion of Huari Laser's domestic lasers from not being accepted by the market to the 'circle of friends', and also achieved continuous breakthroughs in our product yield, efficiency and market share." The person in charge of the Huagong laser hard and brittle material product line said.
At present, the global optoelectronic information industry has entered a period of vigorous development and cross-integration innovation. The competition pattern has also changed from the past to "single-subject" competition such as optical fiber and cable, laser, optical communication devices, etc., to the competition of comprehensive strength with optoelectronic information as the underlying technology and cross-integration of intelligent networked vehicles, integrated circuits, biomedicine, Beidou navigation, photoelectric display and other fields.
Zhao Rongkai, president of the Optics Valley Research Institute of Great Wall Strategic Consulting, said that under the new situation, Optics Valley not only strengthens its leading position in advantageous fields, but also continues to extend the innovation chain, improve the industrial chain, and cultivate more economic growth points for cross-border integrated industries. At present, in optical communication, laser and intelligent manufacturing, photoelectric display, photoelectric sensing, precision optics and other optoelectronics-related industries, a pattern of common prosperity of leading enterprises and innovative enterprises has been presented.
How to break through again
Optoelectronic technology is the underlying common technology of the new generation of information industry, and it is also a revolutionary technology to realize the "curve overtaking" of the information industry. As one of the important pillar industries in Wuhan, Wuhan's optoelectronics industry started early and has a deep heritage, from "the most complete industry" to "independent and controllable industrial chain", behind which there is no lack of continuous innovation investment from the local government.
According to the relevant person in charge of the Administrative Committee of Wuhan East Lake High-tech Zone, from 2012 to 2022, Optics Valley's financial scientific research funds increased from 440 million yuan to 8 billion yuan, enterprise research and development expenses increased from 4.88 billion yuan to 31.7 billion yuan, and basic research funds reached 480 million yuan. The number of national incubators increased from 9 to 28, the number of national innovation platforms with enterprises as the main body increased from 17 to 76, the number of new R&D institutions increased from 1 to 17, the number of high-tech enterprises increased from 672 to 5249, and the number of patents authorized increased by 5.5 times, of which the number of invention patents authorized increased by 6.5 times, and the comprehensive strength ranked in the forefront of the national high-tech zone.
According to data from the industrial database of the First Finance and Economics New First-tier Cities Research Institute, as of July 2023, there are 24 listed companies related to "optical core screen end network" in Wuhan, accounting for 32% of the listed enterprises in Wuhan, half of which belong to the optical communication and laser industry, which has the highest concentration and obvious advantages compared with other cities in China; The number of listed optical communication and laser enterprises in Wuhan is also the first in the country, with a strong leading role.
At the same time, Wuhan has 94 technology-driven optoelectronic enterprises, ranking fifth in the country, leading the new first-tier cities, and the number of enterprise patents has reached 1466, surpassing Suzhou. In addition to optical fiber and laser, Wuhan has also formed a significant layout in new displays (flexible, display, panel, materials) and intelligent terminals (automobiles, robots, electronic equipment), and has initially formed the advantages of the whole industrial chain, which shows that the combination of optoelectronic technology and intelligent terminal application may be an important direction for the extension of the optoelectronic information industry in the future.
As we all know, Wuhan is rich in science and education resources, with Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan Institute of Posts and Telecommunications and many other state-level research institutions in the field of optoelectronic technology, which has sent a large number of high-end talents for the development of optoelectronic information industry, but its output capacity still has a lot of room for improvement.
The above-mentioned industry database of Yicai learned by sorting out the data in Weipu journals that as of July 2023, there are 5 state key laboratories related to optoelectronic information industry in Wuhan, with a total of 1017 papers, which is not a small gap compared with the 1843 papers of the State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instruments in Hangzhou, and the number of papers published is not as good as Xi'an (1196) with 2 state key laboratories in the field of optoelectronic information.
In this regard, Ma Xinqiang, chairman of Huagong Technology, deeply agreed, he bluntly said that Wuhan's market allocation resource capacity is not enough, and the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements in colleges and universities is still relatively low. At present, the universities, institutes, various laboratories, industrial research institutes, innovation research institutes and other innovative resources gathered in Optics Valley are relatively rich. Government departments at all levels have increased investment and gathered talents, which is very promising to produce world-leading breakthrough results, but there is still a long distance between results and products.
Ma Xinqiang suggested that the focus should be on highlighting and strengthening the main position of enterprises in innovation, led by the main enterprises of the chain, integrating scientific research institutes and universities, etc., exploring the mechanism of full linkage between the innovation platform and the industry, encouraging industry and industrial innovation platforms to undertake horizontal topics, encouraging enterprises and innovation platforms to establish a joint mechanism for long-term and in-depth strategic cooperation, opening up the last mile in terms of talent complementarity, achievement sharing, and industrialization of achievements, and creating more representative and efficient The world's leading product.
Start-ups pay more attention to the entrepreneurial atmosphere and investment and financing environment. Cheng Gang said that compared with coastal cities, Wuhan is not bad in terms of technical capabilities, but it still lacks innovative thinking and entrepreneurial atmosphere, and the investment and financing environment needs to be improved. Compared with the coastal areas with more social capital, the investment environment is relatively conservative, and enterprises are prone to fall into the situation of "three and seven openings" (that is, the technical team holds about 30% of the shares, and the investor holds about 70%), although it is conducive to solving the initial funding problems of the enterprise, but making follow-up financing very difficult. In this regard, he suggested that in addition to "investing early and investing in small and medium-sized enterprises" and subsidizing small and medium-sized enterprises, the government also needs to introduce more social capital to participate, "the government's 'investment' should be the investor, not the second headquarters of a large enterprise."
Based on the experience of Tianjiao Optoelectronics in introducing capital living water from the "China Optics Valley 3551 International Entrepreneurship Competition", Cheng Gang is very optimistic about the innovative model of "promoting investment by competition" to achieve the introduction of talents by competition and talent by casting. Such a model has been widely implemented in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions.
Yin Nan said that as an upstream enterprise of the Beidou industry chain, the company still needs more special funds to ensure the independent intellectual property rights of chips and national production, and needs to further strengthen ecological cooperation in talent training, technical cooperation, standard formulation, preparation of the National Beidou Product Testing Center, and business cooperation. From the perspective of market applications, it is necessary to open up more spatiotemporal empowerment application scenarios based on the needs of intelligent development to support the large-scale development of Beidou industry.
From the perspective of long-term development of the industry, the relevant person in charge of Wuhan Industrial Innovation and Development Research Institute said that Wuhan's optoelectronic information industry should change to a higher level of technology, and it is also necessary to overcome some of the "stuck neck" common technologies, and should force basic research through applied research, break industry and discipline barriers, further improve the "government, industry, academia and research funds" transformation system, realize the safety, autonomy and controllability of the industrial chain and innovation chain, realize the leap in innovation ability, double the industrial scale, and build a trillion-scale optoelectronic information industry cluster as soon as possible.