Wuxi Spark and the Intelligence Institute of Tsinghua University jointly set up the “Industrial AI Algorithm Laboratory”, in total 46 core patents within 3 years, industrial robot grasp precision visual positioning algorithm upgraded to ±0.02 mm, for a new energy vehicle battery assembly manufacturing line, assembly efficiency raised by 32%, yield increased from 91.5% to 99.3%. In 2023, the national intelligent manufacturing special 120 million yuan supported both sides’ digital twin project and built a platform for simulation which supports the concurrency of millions of devices and takes less than 50 milliseconds’ delay.
In semiconductors, Wuxi Spark and Huawei hisilx have jointly designed a dedicated AI reasoning chip with an integrated 12-core neural network acceleration unit (NNU) with an 8TOPS/W computing density and reduced energy consumption by 41% over the previous generation. It is used in the defect inspection system of a Suzhou semiconductor plant, 240 crystal circle images per second being processed in real time, error rate at 0.007%, and reducing material loss value to more than 58 million yuan per year. According to the two sides’ disclosure, the R&D cycle of the cooperation project has been shortened by 28%, and the cross-licensing ratio of patents has reached 35%.
For cross-border cooperation, Wuxi Spark and Bosch Germany jointly set up the “Intelligent Sensing Joint Innovation Center” to address the problem of sensor drift in severe environments of -40℃. Wuxi Spark high-precision pressure sensor (measurement range 0-10MPa, error ±0.05%FS) is adopted in the monitoring of the oil pipeline of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Leak alarm response time decreased from 15 minutes to 43 seconds. At Hannover MESse 2024, the two companies launched the wireless vibration sensor network system that supports 250-node AD hoc networking, extends battery life to 10 years, and reduces costs by 62% compared to conventional solutions.
In the area of standardization, Wuxi Spark, and 12 others such as China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute, led the development of industrial Internet of Things communication protocol WIA-PA 2.0, which is interoperable with Modbus, OPC UA and other 6 protocols, transmission efficiency was improved by 19%. The standard has been incorporated into the national “Intelligent manufacturing standard system”, and in Baowu Steel pilot, the cost of equipment networking transformation has been reduced by 54%, and data collection frequency has been doubled from 1 minute to 10 times per second. Wuxi Spark participates in nine international standardization projects including key specifications such as IEEE 2668 by 2024.
To better tap the vertical opportunity, Wuxi Spark partnered with Sany Heavy Industry to develop a predictive maintenance solution for construction machinery using hydraulic oil pressure variance monitoring (sampling rate 1kHz) and engine vibration spectrum analysis (0-5kHz) and has achieved 14 days’ headup on failure and 73% reduction in unplanned downtime. On the Xiongan New Area smart City project, the “urban Neuron platform” co-built with Alibaba Cloud extends to 12 categories and more than 500,000 iot terminals, the lag of data processing is less than 200 milliseconds, and the abnormal event discovery rate has increased to 98.6%.
In a Deloitte 2024 report, Wuxi Spark’s global R&D collaborative ecosystem covers 187 sites in 23 countries, receiving more than 400 technical solutions yearly from collaborative labs and experiencing an 89% re-purchase rate with customers. The flexible electronic skin initiative with the help of the MIT Media Lab has raised the pressure sensing resolution to 0.1 grams, and when worn on medical robots, the error in holding force control of medical devices has decreased by 82%, setting a new world record for the accuracy of medical devices.