A foreign visitor has a close look at an exhibited 3D printer at Xi'an Innovation Center. [Photo/epaper.xiancn.com]

Xi'an, capital city of Shaanxi province in Northwest China, has become a highland of hard and core technologies in just one year since it put forward the conception of "hard and core technologies" in 2017.

Through a great deal of effort, Xi'an has become home to a large number of maker spaces and enterprises engaging in hard and core technologies. Advanced technologies keep being transferred and applied in practical ways at incubators.

Hard and core technology attracts enterprises

The incubators and maker spaces in Xi'an have created a favorable environment for the development of high-tech enterprises. The Xi'an science and technology bureau set aside 100 million yuan ($15.69 million) to support the development of maker spaces. In 2017, the city set up 422 maker spaces, occupying some 13.90 million square meters. As many as 11,529 enterprises settled in the spaces and more than 229,000 people work there. Financing totaled 3.17 billion yuan.

The US-based Saphlux Inc develops, manufactures, and supplies semi-polar gallium-nitride (GaN) materials for nitride-based solid-state lighting and power devices. It set up Xi'an Saifu Semiconductor Technology Co Ltd in the Xi'an Hi-tech Industries Development Zone in May 2017 to produce semi-polar gallium-nitride materials.

"We have investigated many places at home and abroad and none of them can compare with Xi'an in terms of equipment and services. It is also the home to many powerful enterprises, such as Samsung and Huawei. They can also provide supporting resources for us," explained Cao Zeliang, chief executive officer of the company, giving his reasons for settling down in Xi'an. The all-round services of human resources, finance, legal services, equipment and resource sharing platforms helped the company save at least two years in producing the materials. 　

Hard and core technology conference recommends Xi'an to the world

Hard and core technology is not just a conception. It is a drive to accelerate industrial upgrading and transformation. To make better use of hard and core technologies, Xi'an played host to the Global Hard & Core Technology Conference on Nov 7 and 8 in 2017. Under the theme of "Hard & Core Technology Changes the World, Shapes the Future and Enhances Xi'an", the conference arranged activities focused on the technologies in fields of artificial intelligence, aerospace, biotechnology, information technology, new materials, new energy and intelligent manufacturing

Hard and core technologies, put forward by Mi Lei, founding partner of incubation platform CASSTAR, refers to those sophisticated and original technologies that are impossible for others to imitate or copy. "The conference let more people know that Xi'an is exerting efforts to develop hard and core technologies," said Mi.

Xi'an arranged 17 activities at the conference, attracting more than 10,000 participants from home and abroad. At the conference, the global (China) hard and core technology index was released for the first time, a think tank was established to develop hard and core technologies, and development measures and plans were also issued.

Favorable development environment for hard and core technologies

To create a favorable environment for the development of hard and core technologies, Xi'an arranged more than 2,000 activities to boost entrepreneurship and innovation in 2017.

The activities included the "Xi'an Entrepreneurship Festival", "Entrepreneurship and Innovation Week", a Xi'an International Entrepreneurship Competition which was held in six domestic and five overseas divisions, and eight entrepreneurship salons in colleges and universities.

WeChat official accounts were also opened to push notifications about innovation and entrepreneurship policies and circulate stories of outstanding figures. The authorities also arranged training courses for entrepreneurship, experiences sharing activities and roadshows to recommend projects.

The Xi'an Science and Technology Bureau also tried to speed up the construction of special towns by making good use of hard and core technologies. A series of policies were released to support the construction of Xi'an Jiaotong University's Western Technological Innovation Port, Zhongxing Mike Town, 3D Print Town, Chang'an Dream Town and other special towns.