SHANGHAI, Aug. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- At a recent gathering of company employees from R&D and tech, the Technology Conference 2024 held at its global headquarters, Shanghai, Shanghai Electric (SEHK:2727, SSE:601727) revealed ambitious plans to advance self-reliance in science and technology, particularly in emerging sectors.

At this internal conference, Shanghai Electric also unveiled a new development roadmap for its new energy and industrial equipment business units. This roadmap lays out detailed plans aimed at boosting the company's innovation prowess to cement its market leadership.

"Amidst a complex global environment filled with both opportunities and challenges, Shanghai Electric is committed to elevating technological innovation to new heights within our corporate development," said Wu Lei, Chairman of Shanghai Electric. "To achieve this, we are integrating resources to foster an innovation ecosystem and to develop a pathway for building a stronger engineering team, as demanded by the industry. This effort is part of our broader strategy to optimize our innovation-driven blueprint for future growth."

Outlining corporate guidelines, which are also aligned with China's national strategy to build a tech-centric economic model, Wu also said that Shanghai Electric will enhance synergy across group-level enterprises to accelerate innovation projects.

In addition, the Company, with its priorities set on leading and emerging industries, plans to establish national key laboratories and research and development centers, as hubs for technological innovation. The company aims to enhance the precision of its innovation projects, actively participate in technology award applications, and optimize support policies for tech talent that achieves significant breakthroughs.

Transforming the workforce with a three-year action plan

In another company development, Shanghai Electric has launched a three-year action plan to facilitate both business growth and technological advancement, introducing measures to sharpen core competitiveness by improving youth talent training and management. By implementing a dual approach that combines internal training programs with external recruitment efforts, the company seeks to attract and retain exceptional professionals in the field.

As part of this action plan, The Shanghai Electric Excellence Engineer Academy was founded as a talent development platform designed to cultivate an engineering workforce with strong innovation capability, as well as the critical skills and knowledge that help reshape the industry.

Boosting R&D with investments in emerging sectors

From 2021 to 2023, Shanghai Electric allocated 17.7 billion RMB to research and development, with 30% of this investment directed towards emerging sectors such as wind, solar, hydrogen storage, automation equipment, and industrial software. The company continued to push forward its initiative, "Project Management of R&D Investment Regarded as Profit Assessment", by incorporating 11 new projects in 2023, expanding support to a total of 50 projects and resulting in an accumulated profit of 940 million RMB.

Driving innovation through university-industry partnerships

On April 9, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Shanghai Electric signed a strategic cooperation agreement to establish a long-term, sustainable partnership through which they will join hands to create a research center for green intelligent equipment, addressing national and Shanghai's strategic industry needs through technological innovation and talent cultivation, with a focus on the industrialization of innovative technologies.

This initiative was followed by another significant alliance with a prestigious higher education institution, formed with Tsinghua University on July 23. This partnership will concentrate on refining advanced manufacturing and low-carbon energy solutions, as both institutions work to establish high-level innovation platforms.

"With a clear and detailed roadmap, Shanghai Electric is set to become an innovation powerhouse committed to contributing to the national strategy and industrial development. Through focused efforts in research and development and strategic collaborations with industry leaders and academic institutions, Shanghai Electric aims to achieve its goals and set new industry standards by leveraging partnerships and pushing technological boundaries in both leading and emerging industries," Wu added.

For more information, please visit https://www.shanghai-electric.com/group_en/.