In just one year after its establishment, 23 enterprises were incubated. A high - quality "ecosystem" has attracted a large number of robotics companies in Southwest China | AI Chengdu
Industry technical talents participate in professional further education here. College students enter well - known enterprises from the training base. Teenagers and children ignite the spark of interest in scientific and technological exploration... In the Dongguang Artificial Intelligence Valley in Chenghua District, the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center" brings together diverse participants, has an extraordinary flow of people, and connects the present and future of the robot industry.
The "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center"
He Yang, the general manager of the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center", introduced: "The innovation center is jointly built by Chenghua District and Qingdao Innovation Intelligence. Firstly, it helps local enterprises develop, promotes the industrial technology model of the coastal areas, and helps the characteristic industries in Sichuan Province complete the promotion of application innovation. Secondly, it jointly builds a technology entrepreneurship platform with universities to tackle key problems in the core technologies of the robot industry. Thirdly, it constructs a pilot - scale incubation platform to provide testing scenarios and incubation services for universities and start - up enterprises. Fourthly, it is an industry - education integration platform, which combines enterprises and universities to introduce and cultivate talents for the robot industry in Chengdu."
He Yang, the general manager of the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center"
Construction started in September 2023, and it officially started operation on March 7, 2024. Subsequently, the Chengdu Robot Industry - Education Consortium was established at the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center". With the tripartite collaboration of "park - school - enterprise", nearly 60 leading enterprises, 23 universities, and 15 scientific research institutions joined hands to create together. As of now, the Chengdu Robot Industry - Education Consortium has produced 99 patent achievements and won more than 20 awards in innovation and entrepreneurship projects, achieving in - depth linkage between the upstream and downstream of the robot industry chain, and has been short - listed for the provincial - level industry - education consortium cultivation list.
Exhibition hall (part) of the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center"
"Integrating leading enterprises in the industry to obtain upstream and downstream resources of the industrial chain, building a public service platform to provide R & D support for enterprises, establishing an industrial fund to add impetus to projects, gathering leading talents to tackle technical problems, and introducing intermediary institutions to provide business services. These five core elements plus N application scenarios form a '5 + N' industrial innovation ecosystem." He Yang said that the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center" is an industrial public service platform built with the goal of constructing a "5 + N" industrial ecosystem and cultivating an influential and competitive robot industry cluster. Since its official operation in 2024, it has incubated 23 enterprises, among which 18 are involved in artificial intelligence and robots, and has helped leading enterprises in the industry complete system updates.
Exhibition hall (part) of the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center"
Yaskawa Electric, one of the "Big Four" in the industrial robot field, was founded in 1915, launched robot products in 1977, and entered the Chinese market in 1994. Although it entered the Chinese market relatively early, its series of certification systems still need to be improved. The "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center" helped Yaskawa Electric cooperate with universities to establish a skill master studio in Chengdu, integrating technology, products, training standards, and assessment and certification systems. "At the same time, the certification system established by the innovation center for Yaskawa Electric has also been adopted as the standard for Chengdu's vocational level certification by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. In addition, most of Yaskawa Electric's market is in the southeast coastal areas, and the innovation center is helping them promote their products in the southwest region."
New - comer enterprises in the robot field, such as Anmusen Technology and Zhisu Engine, were all cultivated and incubated by the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center". Anmusen Technology was established in April 2024, focusing on the R & D of safety vision - based sensors and detection products. Its R & D team is mainly composed of master's and doctoral graduates from universities such as the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Sichuan University, and Chengdu University of Technology. In just one year after its establishment, Anmusen Technology has become a supplier for Changan and BYD, with an output value of 5 million yuan. Zhisu Engine was registered in April 2025 and made its debut at the 2025 Embodied Intelligent Robot Scene Application Ecosystem Forum in June, showcasing bipedal robots, Wall - E robot kits for intelligent education, intelligent robotic arms, and AI handle black technology that can recognize gesture intentions through electromyographic signals. Reports show that the "AI Agricultural Brain" system developed by Zhisu Engine can collect more than 100 items of data such as soil moisture, light intensity, and crop growth cycle in real - time, providing farmers with precise planting plans. The AI courses developed for the K12 stage have entered more than 20 primary and secondary schools in Chengdu, and it plans to establish AI laboratories in 100 schools in resource - poor areas within three years.
Zhisu Engine's AI education robot
"Zhisu Engine is currently conducting angel - round financing, and the industrial fund under the innovation center plans to participate in this round of investment. At present, there are still many incubation projects in the innovation center preparing to formally establish companies." Driven by the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center", on the one hand, leading enterprises in the robot field are moving forward in a positive direction, and start - up enterprises are constantly being incubated. On the other hand, it is making up for the talent gap.
Training and teaching venue (part) of the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center"
"The partners of the innovation center have reported a shortage of more than 100,000 robot talents per year. Currently, the shortage of industrial robots in China is more than 700,000 per year. One of the major short - boards in the industry's development is the lack of talents." He Yang believes that the talent shortage can be divided into two directions. One is industrial robot operators who understand machinery, automation, and robots, and the other is industrial robot maintenance personnel who are responsible for assembling production lines and conducting maintenance and inspections. Talent cultivation is particularly important. The "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center" is actively applying the "industry - study - research - training - innovation" talent innovation cultivation model to provide fresh blood for the robot industry.
Objectively speaking, the development speed of Chengdu's robot industry lags behind that of the coastal areas. However, He Yang pointed out that he also noticed that relevant departments and state - owned enterprises in Chengdu are actively opening up robot application scenarios and releasing demand lists. "Taking the lead in piloting, opening up the market, and driving other private enterprises to open up scenarios, Chengdu's robot industry has very broad development space. In addition, Chengdu has a large population and many well - known universities with relevant majors, which is an advantage for Chengdu. The innovation center hopes to contribute more to Chengdu's robot industry by collaborating with enterprises, universities, and scientific research institutions."
Training and teaching venue (part) of the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center"
It is understood that in the near future, the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center" will cooperate with Shenzhen Kuawei Intelligence, which has settled in Chenghua District, to jointly build an embodied intelligent robot data collection and empowerment center. Combining landmarks such as the Panda Base and the Eastern Suburb Memory in Chenghua District and the industrial robot application scenarios of enterprises such as Kanopu, it will build a data collection and training platform to provide training services for the application scenarios of start - up enterprises and end - customers. In terms of events, in October this year, the College Students' Innovation Competition hosted by the "Chengdu Robot Innovation Center" will kick off, and it is expected that more than a thousand groups of innovative ideas related to artificial intelligence and robots will be presented in the competition.
This article is from the WeChat official account "36Kr Sichuan". Author: 36Kr Sichuan. 36Kr was authorized to publish it.