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Chengdu teams with universities to push tech
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THE success of Silicon Valley in the United States depends much on the science and technology talent and ideas incubated at nearby universities such as Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. Now China’s rising financial hub of Chengdu is also generating new tech power by bridging the gap between universities and local companies.
One of the major government moves is the Chengdu Technology Transfer Group, which was set up to boost the development of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises in the city. It has a registered capital of 1 billion yuan (US$162 million), providing equity and debt investment to SMEs and technology projects.
Established in July 2012, the state-owned technology transfer group envisions a four-step process: discover technologies at universities and companies, filter those worth developing, find business partners for developers and directly invest in technology transfer.
Since last year, the group has collected 850 technologies from universities and demands for technologies from companies, organized more than 100 promotional events and held over 30 technology transfer fairs, training programs and promotions.
The technology transfer group has subsequently invested nearly 70 million yuan in 20 technology-based SMEs via equity investment, intellectual property pledge financing and equity pledge financing. It also guided various actual funds totaling 120 million yuan.
Successful technology transfers included a fire- and explosion-suppression technology developed by Sichuan Tianwei Electronic, which has been applied on armored cars for military use and in the field of safe anti-explosion of coal gas.
Last year, Tianwei Electronic’s main business income was 54.58 million yuan, up 496 percent year on year, with a profit of 15.4 million yuan, a 372 percent rise. The company is going through shareholding reform now and will be listed on the new three board sector on the stock market.
The technology transfer group also invested in technology companies set up by leading professors at universities, such as Chengdu DO-ITC New Material Co, set up by Professor Yang Gang at Sichuan University.
Other technology projects in progress include a microwave reaction technology by Sichuan University and a highly purified protein-production technology by University of Edinburgh in the UK.
For the next step, the technology transfer group will strengthen financial services for technology companies by providing different tiers of funds and setting up loans and petty loan companies to satisfy the diverse needs of small and medium-sized tech companies.
On the other side, universities are looking for more ways to cooperate with companies as well as county-level cities in Chengdu to transfer their technology ideas into real products. Sichuan University has established an industry technology research center together with Deyang City on the northeast of Chengdu and Luzhou City to the southeast of Chengdu.
Pushing lab products to market
Now it’s negotiating with Shuangliu County in southeastern Chengdu to build a joint industry tech research center and Dongguan in southern China’s Guangdong Province to build an innovative drug research center.
In the past three years, Sichuan University has signed contracts valued at nearly 400 million yuan with companies in Chengdu, covering new materials, new energy, chemistry, pharmaceutical, information technology and advanced equipment manufacturing.
The university also introduced government-backed venture capital funds and private investment funds to help lab products evolve into market products.
Also in Chengdu, Southwest Jiaotong University (SJU) is dedicated to the research and manufacturing of maglev and other high-speed trains that have been widely applied in China’s railway network.
To develop core technologies in transportation that used to be monopolized by foreign companies, SJU cooperated with local domestic industry leaders including Chengdu Xinzhu Road and Bridge Machinery Company. Through the cooperation, the latest technologies in the university labs can be tested on the assembly lines and put into the market to compete against foreign peers.
SJU also cooperated with local governments like Shuangliu County, and co-established a research institute and an industry plant for high-end equipment manufacturing.
The university is also committed to local transportation development in Chengdu by providing advice and tech support in the construction of five lines of the city’s subway network.
The Chengdu government will continue to promote technology transfer with the aim of building an innovative city.
“As government, what we should do most is to provide the best environment for technology-based companies,” Tang Hua, director of the Chengdu Science and Technology Bureau, said in May.
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