gongkong® interviews Realpoint Technology founder and CEO Xia Hongyu

Today, the development of China's digital economy has reached unprecedented heights. Traditional modes of information dissemination are being reshaped by new technologies, subtly influencing the entire world. Over the past decade, the scale of China's digital economy has grown from RMB 11 trillion to RMB 45.5 trillion, with its share of GDP rising from 21.6 % to 39.8 %. Whether it is the smartphones in our hands or the roaring machinery in factories, both have become tightly interlinked components of the digital economy. The wave of digitalization sweeping across China is injecting strong momentum into high-quality economic development.

Xia Hongyu, founder and CEO of ShiDian Technology, graduated from the School of Optoelectronics at Nanjing University of Science and Technology. He has long held technical and management positions at well-known domestic automation companies, with nearly 20 years of experience in industrial Ethernet technology R&D and team management. The industrial bus products he developed won the Shanghai Science and Technology Progress First Prize twice, in 2011 and 2013.

"Going with the trend, building up strength for rapid growth, and seizing the opportunities of the times"

In 2009, when ShiDian Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. was just founded, 3G networks had just emerged, and the concept of the "Internet of Everything" was still in its infancy. At that time, Xia Hongyu was dedicated to automation technology research and product development, and had already sensed the early signs of the automation industry moving toward the digital era. After 2020, ShiDian Technology entered a stage of rapid development, which Xia Hongyu summarized with two key phrases: "going with the trend" and "building up strength for rapid growth."

He explained that "going with the trend" refers to the discrete bus I/O field, which has long been characterized by high industry barriers and a low domestic localization rate. As foreign products have faced widespread shortages over the past two years and domestic products have matured, this field has ushered in tremendous development opportunities. China has a complete industrial chain, and it is only a matter of time before the proportion of domestic products rises further. ShiDian Technology has seized this trend, and rapid development is therefore inevitable. As for "building up strength for rapid growth," this is because ShiDian Technology has long been deeply rooted in the automation industry, investing heavily in research and development in its early stages and accumulating profound technical expertise in bus products. With the increasingly rapid development of digital technology, once the timing was right, the company immediately entered a stage of rapid growth.

As a leader in China's domestic discrete I/O industry, ShiDian Technology brought its new generation of Integrated I/O, Slice I/O, as well as Valve Terminals, temperature controllers, and Stepper Drives to the Shenzhen ITES Machinery Exhibition. These products not only showcase ShiDian Technology's years of accumulated expertise, but also reflect the company's technological foundation in staying attuned to the pulse of the times and standing at the forefront of the industrial digitalization trend.

"Multiple measures in technology R&D and product services, focusing on tackling industry challenges"

As we know, sensors are an extremely important part of modern intelligent industry. Remote I/O modules are mainly used to collect analog and digital signals at industrial sites, relaying commands, which saves equipment investment and cable costs while effectively reducing signal interference. I/O products have always been ShiDian Technology's core products, divided into Integrated I/O and Slice I/O. It is reported that this Slice I/O has the smallest size in the industry, strong scalability, a full range of Function Modules, and supports most industrial protocols, making it stable and reliable.

According to Xia Hongyu, in addition to this, the Valve Terminal products displayed by ShiDian Technology at this exhibition can be used together with third-party Solenoid valves, reducing wiring workload and lowering costs. The temperature controller products are widely used to achieve precise temperature control and can be paired with various industrial protocols, solving the pain point of the single communication method commonly found in temperature controllers on the market. The Stepper Drive products support multiple industrial protocols, filling the gap in stepper drives for fields such as PROFINET and EtherNet/IP on the market.

Behind these products lies ShiDian Technology's years of accumulated R&D expertise. As a high-tech enterprise in the automation field, product and technology R&D has always been one of the core driving forces of its development. ShiDian Technology has a core technical team with an average of over 10 years of experience, as well as professional application laboratories and EMC laboratories. "In the future, we will continue to increase investment in technology R&D, while also stepping up the recruitment of high-end, versatile technical talent," said Xia Hongyu. He stated that the company's development is inseparable from technology investment and talent recruitment, and that R&D achievements, product quality, and high-quality service must always be regarded as ShiDian Technology's core competitiveness, which the company will continue to consolidate and enhance.

Industrial digitalization and intelligent transformation are currently at a critical stage, yet many key pieces of equipment on enterprise production lines still rely heavily on products from Germany, Japan, and the United States. As global production capacity shifts and the international situation continues to change, the country will further support efforts to keep every link of the automation technology production line firmly in domestic hands, and the core technical barriers in the I/O market urgently need to be broken through. Xia Hongyu remains optimistic about the development opportunities in China's domestic discrete bus I/O market and the prospects for domestic substitution: "Although the pandemic in the first half of the year had a certain impact on ShiDian's product sales, large customer groups in industries such as logistics and photovoltaics should see stable growth that offsets the Downstream trend in some other industries. I am optimistic about our performance in the second half of the year."

"Staying closely aligned with the goals of the times to advance digital transformation"

Industrial digitalization and intelligent transformation not only adapt to the development of the information age, but also help make more effective use of resources and achieve energy conservation and emission reduction. The "Outline of the 2035 Vision and Goals" states that China will accelerate the green transformation of its development model and jointly promote high-quality economic development and high-level ecological and environmental protection. This has placed new demands on energy conservation and emission reduction in industrial production. In the future, the development of industries related to carbon neutrality and carbon peaking will continue to open up, so industries such as lithium batteries and photovoltaics will also continue to receive significant attention. Xia Hongyu has called for R&D in related fields to keep pace, and for the level of systematic industrial services to be further improved. For example, in the new energy market, during electric vehicle production, integrating temperature controllers with I/O control systems (XB6) enables intelligent temperature regulation, greatly improving production efficiency. In addition, when it comes to solving the problem of receiving and transmitting production information and commands, customers no longer need to choose multiple manufacturers or use various formats to handle production needs, but can instead get a one-stop solution from a single company. This not only facilitates the centralized allocation and rational use of resources, but also reflects the advantages of ShiDian Technology's R&D achievements combined with high-quality product services.

"The Chinese market has never lacked players. How to find one's own core competitiveness among the constantly emerging new forces can be examined from several aspects, such as technology, products, and the market," Xia Hongyu pointed out. To continuously maintain competitive advantages, companies need to keep strengthening their technology and service capabilities, while also staying closely aligned with the goals of the times and capturing market opportunities. First, at the technical level, as the company grows in scale, it needs to continuously invest in ongoing technology R&D expenses. In addition to the usual depth of bus technology, it is also necessary to broaden the scope of bus applications in order to maintain a leading-edge position. Second, the company should diversify its product forms to meet customers' varied needs, converting more products to bus-based solutions. Third, at the market level, through exhibitions and channel partnerships, and by leveraging the quality of its products, the company should further strengthen ShiDian's brand influence.

In the second half of 2022, ShiDian Technology will also launch new products (IP67, IO-Link) and move forward as quickly as possible with the completion of the company's headquarters. ShiDian Technology aims to build a leading domestic brand in intelligent automation, and to leverage this scale to connect the entire industrial chain, delivering continuous value to customers through shorter delivery cycles, better cost-performance ratios, and large-scale procurement. According to Xia Hongyu, the company will continue to focus on industrial connectivity going forward, developing new technologies in the field of industrial communication, and expects to benchmark itself against the international market within the next 3 to 5 years.

"ShiDian Technology is a company built on openness, innovation, hard work, and sharing. Our goal is to become a leading enterprise in China's industrial automation sector. At the national level, we pursue 'secure and reliable domestic substitution' and 'Made in China 2025,' and we hope that ShiDian's people can contribute their own share of effort. At the industry level, we hope to lead industrial connectivity and make intelligent manufacturing simpler." Xia Hongyu is full of confidence in ShiDian Technology, and at the same time, he strives to provide long-term value to customers and grow alongside them over the long run.

Downstream enterprises in the development of the intelligent industry are currently flourishing across the board. Companies are eagerly gearing up, fully leveraging the advantages of massive data and rich application scenarios across every link of industry, promoting the deep integration of digital technology with the real economy, empowering the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, giving rise to new industries, new business forms, and new models, and strengthening new engines of economic development. China's development cannot do without intelligent manufacturing, nor can it do without these innovative technology enterprises that continuously open up and develop in new fields while providing high-quality services. This will gradually help push China's intelligent industry toward stability and maturity. gongkong® also looks forward to witnessing ShiDian Technology become an indispensable force in this process, making even greater contributions to China's modern industrial system.