On the morning of March 19, Sichuan held its inaugural "15+N" key industrial chain product launch event in Chengdu, titled "Unlocking LLMs, Meeting Robots" - the 2025 Sichuan Province Artificial Intelligence Industrial Chain Products Launch.

Shortly after the product display, the information brochures at the booth of Chengdu Ruixinxing Technology Co., Ltd. (Ruixinxing for short) were quickly snapped up. Established in 2019, this company has rapidly risen to the top tier of the niche sector within the domestic mobile robotics industry, attributed to its controller products for mobile robotics that integrate its in-house developed algorithms and hardware-software co-design.

"In our darkest hour, an investment from the Sichuan Academician Science and Technology Innovation Equity Investment Guidance Fund (Sichuan Academician Fund) became a vital lifeline," recalled Long Yu, CEO of Ruixinxing Technology. Such cases are far from isolated in the province; the synergistic coupling between state capital and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Sichuan and the artificial intelligence (AI) sector is growing increasingly profound.

This year's government work report proposes that "Under the AI Plus initiative, we will work to effectively combine digital technologies with China's manufacturing and market strengths." Currently, central enterprises are also accelerating and deepening their AI Plus special actions. In this background, the state capital and SOEs in Sichuan are becoming increasingly active in the AI arena, from breaking through core technologies and deepening scenario applications to increasing capital investment.

Capitalizing on Industry-Specific and Scenario-Based Strengths

Intensively Cultivating Niche Markets

A truck pulled over to the emergency lane upon exiting a tunnel on the Ya'an—Xichang Expressway. This action was quickly detected by the monitoring system, which triggered an alarm and promptly notified traffic enforcement, road patrol, and rescue personnel on their mobile devices.

The reporter witnessed this scene on the Shudao Investment Group's digital management and control system for expressways. The system, independently developed by Sichuan Shudao Intelligent Transportation Group Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Shudao Investment Group, collects multi-source data through monitoring equipment and overhead gantries. Utilizing AI and multi-source data integration algorithms as its core, it creates a comprehensive closed-loop sensing system.

Technicians at Shudao Intelligent Transportation Group recalled that around 2016, the rise of big data, combined with the need to support the national strategy of building a leading country in transportation, prompted the Shudao Investment Group to establish an information technology team. As the Shudao Investment Group was established after its restructuring, the Shudao Intelligent Transportation Group was assigned the role of providing innovative support and digital empowerment for the transformation towards "Digital Shudao". The company integrates AI technology into traditional expressway management systems and reconstructs the service ecology based on the specific needs of various road scenarios.

Changhong was also among the first to enter the AI arena. "In 2012, with the arrival of significant breakthroughs in deep learning technology, Changhong promptly recognized the AI's potential to revolutionize the home appliance and manufacturing industries, and the company commenced systematic investment in research and development (R&D) in this field," explained a person in charge from the Changhong AI Laboratory.

Executives from several SOEs highlighted the importance of leveraging the strategic growth period of the AI industry, emphasizing that focusing on high-value scenarios that align with their core responsibilities and businesses is crucial for SOEs to make significant breakthroughs in this field.

"We are deeply engaged in multi-scenario applications across vertical sectors and possess core data assets that cover critical areas such as intelligent manufacturing and industrial quality inspection. For example, we have established a million-scale anonymized data sample library for intelligent quality inspection." The person in charge of the Changhong AI Laboratory further illustrated that the company centers its efforts on key businesses, including home appliances and manufacturing, while targeting two primary scenarios: enhancing intelligent interaction and improving efficiency. On the consumer side, Changhong is advancing interactive technologies like voice recognition and image identification, aiming to lead the smart home market. In manufacturing, the focus is on optimizing quality inspection automation and implementing predictive maintenance to tackle challenges related to labor costs and precision.

Currently, the Shudao Investment Group has been investing in the construction and operation of expressways in Sichuan Province, accumulating a total length of 7,900 kilometers, which accounts for approximately 75 percent of the province's total expressway network. "This vast amount of data also serves as a crucial 'training ground' for AI R&D," said a technician from Sichuan Shudao Intelligent Transportation Group. Using the intelligent management and control system as an example, the technician highlighted that the platform has already amassed over 50 billion pieces of data.

Combining Industry and Investment to Drive Production with Investment

Striving to Be a "Thoroughbred" in Innovation

On March 18, at the Ruixinxing Robot Testing Center located within the CEC Optics Valley Sunshine Union Information Port in the CDHT West Area of Chengdu, a newly assembled tote handling robot prototype with a controller just installed was ready to be shipped to a customer's factory in Zhejiang Province. Founded by a joint team of professors from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) and Southwest Jiaotong University, Ruixinxing specializes in developing the controller, the "brain" of industrial autonomous mobile robots and a field with exceptionally high technical barriers.

In 2022, Ruixinxing completed product verification. However, with its product line still in development, the company faced an urgent need for funding to drive product standardization, R&D, and customer service initiatives. At that time, the Sichuan Academician Fund, managed by the Sichuan Development Industrial Fund under Sichuan Development Holding Co., Ltd., was actively exploring entrepreneurial projects in universities and research institutes, including the UESTC.

"As an equity investment fund led by state-owned enterprises, we consistently concentrate on original innovation and the application of scientific and technological achievements in cutting-edge fields, with AI being one of our key investment directions," said a person in charge from the Sichuan Academician Fund Partnership (L.P.). In the second half of 2022, Ruixinxing closed its Series A financing round led by the Billionhome Fund and the Sichuan Academician Fund, which was allocated for market expansion and product R&D upgrades targeting small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. This strategic move enabled Ruixinxing to rapidly accumulate extensive experience in various industrial application scenarios, solidifying its position as a leader in the industry.

By combining industry and investment to drive production through investment, state capital and SOEs in Sichuan are actively advancing into the AI arena. In September of last year, the Sichuan Institute of Machinery Research &Design (Group) Co., Ltd., under the Sichuan Industrial Revitalization Fund Investment Group Co., Ltd., along with its subsidiary, Chengdu Sichuan-HIT Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd., collaborated with a team from the UESTC to jointly establish Sichuan Embodied Intelligent Robot Technology Co., Ltd., aiming to significantly advance the industrialization of humanoid robots "Made in Sichuan".

"Achieving true industrialization of humanoid robots requires developing industrial pilot scenarios and conducting verification, while focusing on establishing a production supply chain for bipedal robots, among other efforts. State capital plays a crucial role in integrating resources to drive these efforts forward," explained Yang Songli, Deputy General Manager of Chengdu Sichuan-HIT Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd.

"AI has consistently been a strategic investment priority for us," stated a person in charge from Sichuan Industrial Revitalization Fund Investment Group Co., Ltd. The group's subsidiary, Sichuan Venture Capital, has successively made investments in AI-related enterprises, including upstream core hardware manufacturers like Hefei CXMT and RiVAI Technologies, as well as downstream application companies such as Unisound and Koala Uran. Among these investments, there are notable success stories of leveraging investment to attract resources. For instance, RiVAI Technologies has established an R&D center in Chengdu, where it has cultivated a team focused on advanced processor development. Additionally, the fund has facilitated a series of in-depth industry-academia-research collaborations between RiVAI Technologies and the UESTC, nurturing a pool of highly skilled technical and industrial talent.

"We will continue to accelerate the establishment of the fund cluster while leveraging the Pilot-scale Research and Development Company founded last year to speed up the construction of the '1+N' system for pilot-scale test projects," revealed an executive from Sichuan Industrial Revitalization Fund Investment Group Co., Ltd. Moving forward, the company plans to enhance collaborative innovation capabilities, with the goal of generating over 50 industrial innovation achievements and incubating more than 10 technology-focused enterprises, the executive added.