On April 23, the Jinan Robotics Industry Development Office hosted the Jinan Robotics Industry Innovation Achievements Exhibition and Supply-Demand Matching Event, which grandly opened in the lobby of Building B of the Qilu Software Building. As the capital of Shandong Province, Jinan took this opportunity to comprehensively showcase the latest achievements and long-term strategic planning of its robotics industry development.
From the event, it was learned that currently, the core robotics industry scale in Jinan has approached 15 billion yuan, forming an industrial cluster led by key enterprises such as State Grid Intelligent, Lanjian Intelligent, and Yifei Intelligent. To further stimulate industrial development vitality, Jinan is accelerating the construction of a policy system and plans to establish a robotics industry development investment fund with a scale of 5 billion yuan, along with the introduction of the “1+3” policy documents.
1. Supply-Demand Matching Builds an Industrial Ecosystem Platform
This event is an annual industry gathering meticulously prepared by the Jinan Robotics Industry Development Office after in-depth research on over 90 industry chain enterprises.
The event site was divided into three major sections: intelligent equipment exhibition area, solution exhibition area, and core components exhibition area, showcasing over 120 independently developed products such as power inspection robots, warehousing logistics robots, and industrial welding robots. Star products like the underwater detection robot from State Grid Intelligent, the shuttle system from Lanjian Intelligent, and the parallel robot from Yifei Intelligent attracted the attention of over 200 buyers from across the country.
In the supply-demand matching session, the organizer innovatively adopted a “company roadshow + one-on-one negotiation” model, organizing 50 local suppliers to conduct precise matching with 80 buyers from within and outside the province. According to incomplete statistics, a total of 37 intended cooperation projects were reached on the day of the event, involving an amount exceeding 1.2 billion yuan. Among them, the automotive welding robot production line project signed between Jinan Second Machine Tool Group and Volkswagen Germany, and the procurement agreement for transformer internal inspection robots reached between Shandong Electric Equipment and State Grid, became the outstanding achievements of this matching event.
“We hope to achieve deep integration of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain by building this platform,” said Li Hongtao, director of the Jinan Robotics Industry Development Office, in an interview. He emphasized that this event not only facilitated order cooperation but also constructed an industrial collaborative mechanism of “government guidance – market leadership – enterprise主体”. Data shows that the local supporting rate of Jinan’s robotics industry has increased from 45% in 2020 to the current 68%, forming a complete industrial chain from core component manufacturing to system integration applications.
2. Industrial Scale Breakthrough Demonstrates Core Strength
The “Jinan Robotics Industry Development White Paper” released at the event shows that by the end of 2024, there will be 97 robotics-related enterprises in the city, including 52 core manufacturing enterprises and 45 supporting service enterprises, forming a spatial layout of “three cores leading, multiple points supporting”. The intelligent equipment industrial cluster centered in the high-tech zone, the industrial robot industrial cluster centered in the economic development zone, and the service robot industrial cluster centered in Huaiyin District each exhibit advantages in different sub-sectors.
In terms of technological innovation, Jinan has 3 national-level industrial design centers, 1 national-level enterprise technology center, and 10 provincial-level enterprise technology centers, having obtained over 1,800 patents in the field of robotics. State Grid Intelligent relies on the only key laboratory for power robots in the national power system, having successively developed the country’s first substation inspection robot, line de-icing robot, underwater cable detection robot, and other “national heavy equipment”, with products exported to over 30 countries and regions including Russia and Australia. Lanjian Intelligent’s intelligent warehousing logistics system has successfully entered high-end markets in Germany and Japan, becoming one of the few Chinese companies that can compete with international giants like Dematic and SICK.
The industrial scale has achieved leapfrog growth, with the core industry scale increasing from 8 billion yuan in 2020 to the current 15 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate exceeding 20%. The application fields of products continue to expand, with a penetration rate of 45% in traditional industries such as metallurgy, electricity, automotive manufacturing, and construction, while application scenarios in emerging fields such as new energy vehicles and high-end equipment are rapidly expanding. Notably, the service robot industry in Jinan has emerged strongly, with products such as medical rehabilitation robots and educational companion robots entering the mass production stage, and the output value of service robots is expected to exceed 3 billion yuan in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 35%.
3. Policy Combination Builds New Development Advantages
To break through the bottlenecks of funding, talent, and technology faced by industrial development, Jinan is accelerating the introduction of the “1+3” policy system. “1” refers to the “Several Policies for the Innovative Development of Jinan’s Robotics Industry”, which serves as the leading document, clearly proposing to achieve a core industry scale of over 50 billion yuan by 2027, driving the scale of related industries to reach 100 billion yuan. This policy covers 26 specific measures in 8 major areas, including enhancing innovation capabilities, cultivating industrial clusters, expanding application scenarios, and attracting and nurturing talent, with clauses such as increasing the R&D expense deduction ratio to 120% and providing a maximum subsidy of 5 million yuan for the first set of products, which have attracted significant attention from enterprises.
“3” includes the “Three-Year Action Plan for the Development of Jinan’s Robotics Industry (2025-2027)”, “Special Policies for Robotics Talent in Jinan”, and “Plan for the Establishment of the Robotics Industry Development Investment Fund in Jinan”. The three-year action plan outlines three key tasks: in terms of technological breakthroughs, focusing on “bottleneck” areas such as intelligent perception, autonomous control, and lightweight structures, planning to build 5 provincial-level or above innovation platforms; in terms of industrial cultivation, focusing on creating 3-5 leading enterprises with an output value exceeding 5 billion yuan, and nurturing 20 “specialized, refined, unique, and innovative” small and medium-sized enterprises; in terms of application promotion, recognizing 10 intelligent factories and 20 digital workshops each year, and building 5 robot application demonstration parks.
The talent special policy launches the “Qiancheng Robot Talent Program”, providing up to 100 million yuan in comprehensive funding for top talent teams, and a maximum living subsidy of 500,000 yuan for doctoral students, while establishing a “green channel for professional title evaluation for robotics engineers” to alleviate concerns about talent in the industry. The highly anticipated 5 billion yuan industrial development investment fund will adopt a “mother fund + direct investment” model, focusing on supporting core component R&D, high-end equipment manufacturing, and public service platform construction, and is expected to leverage over 20 billion yuan in social capital.
4. Leading Enterprises Guide the Path of Industrial Upgrading
At the event, several leading enterprises shared their experiences in innovative development. Zhang Lixian, general manager of State Grid Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., introduced that the company adheres to deep integration of “industry-university-research-application”, establishing joint laboratories with Shandong University and the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, with R&D investment accounting for over 15% in the past three years. Their developed 500 kV transformer internal inspection robot has broken the monopoly of foreign enterprises in this field, with inspection efficiency improved by over three times compared to manual work, and it is currently applied in power grid maintenance projects across 31 provinces and cities nationwide.
Wu Yaohua, chairman of Lanjian Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., emphasized the importance of global layout: “We have established R&D centers in Germany and sales companies in Japan, breaking through technical barriers through localized operations. By 2024, overseas market revenue will account for 40%, and high-end logistics equipment has entered the supply chains of internationally renowned companies such as Toyota and Siemens.” The company’s independently developed “goods-to-person” picking system has achieved a 60% improvement in warehousing efficiency, with an error rate of less than one in ten thousand.
As a representative of emerging enterprises, Zhang Sai, general manager of Yifei Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., introduced the light asset operation model: “We focus on the R&D of parallel robots, attracting over 30 supporting enterprises to gather in Jinan through an open technology platform, forming a collaborative innovation ecosystem of ‘R&D in Jinan, manufacturing nearby’.” Their developed DELTA robot has a positioning accuracy of ±0.1 mm and a speed exceeding 300 times/minute, with technical indicators reaching international first-class levels.
5. Looking Forward to the New Blueprint of a Trillion-Level Industrial Cluster
Geng Runian, deputy director of the Jinan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, stated in his concluding remarks that the Jinan robotics industry has entered a critical period of “simultaneous quantity and quality improvement”. It is currently actively aligning with the national “14th Five-Year” robotics industry development plan and integrating into the construction of the “Shandong Peninsula Intelligent Equipment Industrial Cluster”, striving to achieve three major transformations in three years: from single product manufacturing to system solution provider, from a domestic market-oriented approach to a “dual circulation” market pattern, and from follower innovation to leading innovation.
To achieve this goal, Jinan is accelerating the construction of “one academy, one base, and three platforms”: relying on the construction of the Robotics Technology Innovation Research Institute in Jinan Science and Technology Innovation City by the Chinese Academy of Sciences to create a national-level industrial innovation base; building intelligent robot testing and certification platforms, industrial internet empowerment platforms, and intellectual property operation platforms to construct a full-chain public service system. It is expected that by 2027, the city will form more than 5 characteristic industrial parks, cultivate more than 10 listed companies, and achieve a robot density (the number of robots per 10,000 workers) of over 800 units, approaching the levels of developed countries such as Germany and Japan.
With the establishment of the 5 billion yuan industrial fund and the implementation of the “1+3” policy, the Jinan robotics industry has ushered in unprecedented development opportunities. This achievement exhibition held at the Qilu Software Building is not only a summary of existing achievements but also a clarion call for marching towards a trillion-level industrial cluster. Under the triple effects of policy empowerment, innovation-driven, and leading enterprises, Jinan is gradually becoming an important growth pole in the national robotics industry landscape, contributing more “Jinan strength” to the construction of a strong manufacturing province and national technological self-reliance.
(This article’s news source: Jinan Robotics Industry Development Office, Jinan Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, and public information from participating enterprises)