Is the future "Optics Valley" in Northeast China?
In the national wave of cities "chasing light", a new "dark horse" is stepping into the public view.
On June 12th, the 3rd International Optoelectronics Expo will be held in Changchun. Previously, Jilin Province has listed "building China's Optoelectronics City" as a key task for the 15th Five - Year Plan. In recent days, local media have frequently published articles, striving to link Changchun with the image of an "Optoelectronics City".
If we look at a longer time - line, Changchun has been very active in the optoelectronics field recently.
In the market, Changchun Changguang Chenxin Microelectronics Co., Ltd. successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming one of the few companies in Changchun with a market value of over 10 billion yuan.
The local government is also making every effort to promote the development of the optoelectronics industry. High - level meetings are being held one after another, and the planning of "China's Optoelectronics City" is being accelerated. According to the previous plan, Changchun aims to "build the optoelectronic information industry into a new pillar industry after the automobile industry".
Previously, Changchun also put forward the development goal of becoming the "Northern Optics Valley". As we all know, Wuhan, where the Optics Valley is located, has been pursuing the optoelectronics industry for nearly 40 years and has finally entered the "harvest period". For Changchun, how will it achieve this ambition?
01
Reshaping Advantages
To compare the development of the optoelectronics industries in Changchun and Wuhan, we need to go back several decades.
Image source: Jilin Provincial Department of Commerce
Zeng Gang, the dean of the Urban Development Research Institute of East China Normal University, has long been concerned about the development of urban optoelectronics industries. According to his observation, Wuhan's optoelectronics industry originated from scientific research institutions such as Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, while Changchun mainly relies on the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
At that time, there were two major cores in China's optical communication field, one in the south and the other in the north, namely Changchun and Wuhan. Among them, Changchun even had a stronger scientific research strength. Now, Wuhan's optoelectronics industry has taken shape, while in Changchun, "the seed is still buried and has not really borne fruit".
When tracing the development history of Wuhan Optics Valley, local media always mention "a glass fiber" - in 1979, China's first practical optical fiber was born at the Wuhan Research Institute of Posts and Telecommunications.
As a representative of the "eldest son of the Republic", the starting point of Changchun's optoelectronics story is more profound. In the middle of the last century, scientists such as Academician Wang Daheng, the "Father of Chinese Optics", founded the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Changchun, which became the "cradle of optics" in New China. Since then, Changchun has been involved behind a series of "firsts", such as the first optical theodolite, the first laser, and the first optical satellite payload.
However, subsequently, the two cities took completely different paths.
Over the decades, with Optics Valley as the main battlefield, Wuhan has gradually made the optoelectronics industry the "business card" of the city, accompanied by several ups and downs in the industry. Last year, the scale of the optoelectronic information industry in Optics Valley exceeded 650 billion yuan. By 2030, the scale of Wuhan's optoelectronic information industry aims to reach 1.5 trillion yuan, and it is expected to become the city's first trillion - level industrial cluster.
In contrast, Changchun's optoelectronics industry seemed to reach its peak at the beginning. Especially under the glory of the "dominant" automobile industry, it was almost "invisible". By last year, the output value of Changchun's automobile industry in the first 11 months was 404.77 billion yuan, accounting for 58.5% of the city's industrial output value, while the comprehensive output value of the optoelectronics industry last year was only 90.6 billion yuan, and it is still striving to reach 100 billion yuan.
Changchun intends to reshape its own advantages.
In 2023, Changchun stepped up its "light - chasing" efforts, proposing to build the optoelectronic information industry into a new pillar industry after the automobile industry, and introduced the "Three - Year Action Plan for Cultivating the Starlight of Changchun's Optoelectronic Information Industry". According to the plan, Changchun will create an "internationally first - class 'Changchun Optics Valley' high - quality brand". By the end of 2025, it aims to achieve the "double - thousand" goal of an optoelectronic information industry with a comprehensive output value of over 100 billion yuan and more than 1,000 enterprises.
In the following year, Changchun held its first Optoelectronics Expo. The Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, as well as universities and research institutions such as Jilin University and Changchun University of Science and Technology all participated. It is not difficult to see Changchun's expectation of activating local scientific research resources and promoting the docking and development of science and industry through the expo.
Last year, a more ambitious plan for "China's Optoelectronics City" emerged. A relevant person in charge of the Changchun Industry and Information Technology Bureau previously introduced that Changchun will take the North Lake Future Science City as the core, promote resource sharing and coordinated linkage among Changchun New Area, China - South Korea (Changchun) International Cooperation Demonstration Zone, and Economic Development Zone within the core area, undertake major projects and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in the optoelectronics field, and promote industrial agglomeration.
This year, the importance of the optoelectronics industry has been upgraded again. In March, Jilin Province clearly designated the optoelectronic information industry as the "No. 1 project" of the provincial Party committee and the provincial government, and "China's Optoelectronics City" is the "core" of Changchun's modern metropolitan area.
02
Conceptual Transformation
However, the goal of becoming the next "Optics Valley" is obviously not an easy task for Changchun.
Image source: Changchun News
Among Changchun's optoelectronics enterprises, the "Changguang System" is undoubtedly an important force. From Changguang Chenxin, which listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange this year, to Changguang Satellite, which is building the "Jilin - 1" constellation, the 52 "Changguang System" enterprises in the local area all have the same "technology origin" - the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics. It is not only a rare "treasure trove" for the development of Changchun's optoelectronics industry, but also makes many local leading enterprises associated with it.
On the other hand, in Zeng Gang's view, there is an obvious shortcoming in Changchun's development, that is, the degree of openness is insufficient.
Some observers describe Changchun as a city with an "internal circulation". Taking the automobile industry, which accounts for a large proportion of the city's industry, as an example, FAW has not only formed a "satellite city" where the factory area and the urban area are difficult to distinguish, but also thousands of small and medium - sized enterprises in the city that are supporting the upstream and downstream of the automobile manufacturing industry chain, forming a "self - contained galaxy".
In contrast, Zeng Gang pointed out that the "take - off" of Wuhan Optics Valley has been inseparable from technological cooperation with countries such as Russia from the very beginning. The local area has introduced many professional institutions through market - oriented means, which helps to break administrative boundaries, gather resources globally, and promote the improvement of scale benefits.
In contrast, the Changchun Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association found in a survey that Changchun's optoelectronics industry has obvious advantages in high - tech R & D, and its products are widely used in high - end fields such as aerospace and national defense science and technology. However, the rich scientific research achievements have not been effectively transformed into strong market value.
The reason is that different from Wuhan's path of focusing on market applications, Changchun's development direction focuses more on high - end scientific research fields. This difference in paths has led to Changchun's failure to form a good scale effect, and the prominent manifestation is that the upstream and downstream industrial chains are not perfect enough.
Looking across the country, in recent years, domestic cities have been increasingly eager to chase the "light". Wuhan Optics Valley is reaping the fruits, the "Optics Legion" in Suzhou is rising strongly, and the optoelectronics industrial cluster in Shenzhen is also quite powerful... It is not difficult to find that the common characteristics of these cities are: market - driven, active private sector, and capital - intensive.
As Zeng Gang said, in the optoelectronics field, the global innovation network, production network, and logistics network have already been integrated. This means that any city that wants to "get a share of the pie" must have sufficient openness and resource integration ability. For Changchun, this is also a "prerequisite" for building the next Optics Valley.
03
The Key to Solving the Problem
Another equally concerning question is whether Changchun, which has now chosen to "heavily invest" in the optoelectronic information industry, can still catch up with the "wind" of the industry's development?
Image source: Photographic Network_501768783
The optoelectronics industry is a highly cyclical industry. It is a consensus that AI is the key "driver" for the "take - off" of the optoelectronics and storage industries in this round. However, just two years ago, the storage industry was in the "quagmire" of a downward cycle. Under the "stick" of the cycle, discussions about "how long the AI wave can last" have already emerged.
Wuhan and Hefei are undoubtedly the "beneficiaries" of this cycle, but analysts also mention the more than ten - year "dormant period" of the two cities. Changchun, which is a step behind, seems to face greater uncertainties.
However, in Zeng Gang's view, Changchun is not without opportunities. As he said, optoelectronics is an industry with a wide range of coverage and is deeply related to many future industries. For example, in quantum communication, Hefei has made a series of forward - looking layouts. A specific scenario is that quantum communication can solve the problem of a 30% disconnection rate of drones, and it has great development prospects.
In this sense, both Wuhan and Hefei can only be considered to have won the first stage of industrial development, and there is still a long way to go to reach the international advanced level. With the changes in the international situation in the future, what will test enterprises and cities is not only the ability to integrate domestic resources, but also how to effectively attract global resources will become a new test. In these areas, late - developing cities still have room to overtake on the curve.
For Changchun, openness will once again be the key to solving the problem.
In Northeast Asia, Changchun has unparalleled advantages. Changchun is located in the central part of Northeast China. With Changchun as the center, within a radius of 200 kilometers, nearly 70% of Jilin Province's population and more than 70% of its economic aggregate are concentrated, and an economic radiation circle with great potential is naturally formed.
In a broader perspective, Changchun also positions itself as the geometric center of the Northeast Asian region. The 15th Five - Year Plan Outline of Changchun further proposes to build it into an important window for opening up to the north and a central hub for cooperation in the Northeast Asian region.
Zeng Gang believes that Changchun is geographically close to Russia, South Korea, etc., with convenient transportation, and there has been cultural exchange since ancient times. There are basic advantages in promoting scientific and technological industrial cooperation. These countries also have a foundation in the optoelectronics industry. If Changchun can build a good "foundation", set up a "bridge", and especially build a good "ecological environment", it may gather financial capital, scientific and technological achievements, and talent in the region.
It is worth looking forward to whether Changchun can seize this round of industrial opportunities and join the ranks of strong cities?
This article is from the WeChat public account "Urban Evolution Theory", author: Yang Qifei. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.