Article reproduced from the official website of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government
How can Party-building advantages be converted into development effectiveness? Songjiang insists on building Party organizations on top of industrial clusters, leading high-quality development with high-quality Party building. In recent years, under the coordination of the Songjiang District AI Industry Cluster Party Committee, local Dongjing Town enterpriseShanghai 3Srobotics Technology Co., Ltd. (3Srobotics) and Shanghai University of Engineering Science have deepened university-enterprise collaboration, forming a Party-member science-and-technology innovation vanguard team. University Party-member professors and enterprise technical backbones jointly tackle “chokepoint” technologies in high-end equipment, building a government-university-enterprise trinity collaborative innovation system that turns Party organizational strengths into a powerful red engine for scientific and technological innovation.
Government Sets the Stage, Breaking Down the “Resource Wall” Between University and Enterprise
In early 2024, 3Srobotics held core advantages in 3D vision and AI algorithms, and as its business expanded, demand for cutting-edge technology R&D and high-end professional talent kept rising; the Robotics Research Institute of Shanghai University of Engineering Science had long cultivated algorithmic theory research but lacked real industrial scenarios for technology validation. Each side had strengths and weaknesses, and university-enterprise resources were hard to connect. At the end of January that year,the Songjiang District AI Industry Cluster Party Committee took the lead in organizing a special industry-academia-research matchmaking event,building an initial exchange platform for enterprises and university expert teams.
“We realized right away that the enterprise needed ‘troops’ and the school needed ‘scenarios’ — with just one link, the two sides could click.” A relevant official of the District AI Industry Cluster Party Committee said. Party-member backbones proactively stepped forward,using Party-building joint construction as the “matchmaker” to provide end-to-end coordination and service guarantees, driving the two sides to quickly establish a joint-tackling mechanism and co-build an intelligent welding joint laboratory, exploring a collaborative path of“universities attacking fundamentals, enterprises doing transformation, and the laboratory doing validation”— clearing the blockages of information disconnect and channel friction in university-enterprise cooperation.
To this day, relevant 3Srobotics officials still vividly recall that first contact: “After that matchmaking meeting, the AI Industry Cluster Party Committee continued to follow up and coordinate, helping us resolve many obstacles to cooperation. One could say thatwithout the Party organization’s ‘matchmaking’, our cooperation would not have proceeded so smoothly.” the official said.
Party Members Lead the Way, Cracking the Hardest “Nuts”
With the Party organization connecting and coordinating, the Party-member science-and-technology innovation vanguard charged to the front, jointly researching the pain points of traditional welding technology around intelligent welding of complex steel structures for high-end equipment, targeting the hardest technical “nuts”. Finally, good news came from the intelligent welding joint laboratory:the long-unsolved welding challenge saw a new breakthrough — the robot can now perform automated welding.
Traditional large steel-structure welding relies heavily on manual operation, which is not only inefficient and costly, but also exposes frontline welders to high temperatures and intense light, with high operational risk and labor intensity. University-enterprise Party-member technical backbones built on 3Srobotics’ mature engineering capabilities in 3D vision hardware mass production, intelligent equipment integration and industrial-scenario batch delivery to self-develop a3D vision system,AI welding foundation modelandrobot control system, innovatively equipping the robot with a high-precision “visual perception system”: using 3D vision reconstruction and multi-sensor fusion AI discrimination models to precisely identify various weld-seam defects, while synchronously optimizing robot motion control algorithms to achieve welding without manual teaching or preset models,completely freeing enterprises from dependence on experienced programming welders.
This technical breakthrough directly changed the construction mode of domestic nuclear power projects. At the welding site of the outer dome of the Hualong One third-generation nuclear reactor in Zhangzhou Yunxiao, six sets of intelligent welding robots were deployed simultaneously to replace traditional scaffolding manual welding,improving welding efficiency by 3 to 5 times and reducing overall production costs by about 40%. On-site welders said: “One intelligent robot can complete the workload of an entire welding team, with faster operation and more stable finished weld quality.”
Abundant Results, Continuously Releasing Red Momentum
The Party organization’s leading role goes far beyond a single university-enterprise cooperation, continuously extending and expanding the innovation chain. Building on the existing cooperation, 3Srobotics and the School of Materials of Shanghai University of Engineering Science and the Shanghai Collaborative Innovation Center for Laser Advanced Manufacturing Technology joined hands again toco-build the Joint R&D Center for Laser-Arc High-Efficiency Hybrid Welding Technology and Equipment, extending technology application scenarios from steel structures toheavy industry, petrochemical, shipbuilding and many other fields.
During the joint-tackling period, the two sides jointly applied for multiple key technology patents to safeguard the enterprise’s innovative development. A rich product matrix and cutting-edge technology reserves have solidified 3Srobotics’“specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative”development foundation, with annual revenue targets steadily advancing from the tens-of-millions to the 200-million level. At the same time, a university-enterprise talent training base helps the enterprise attract young talent from universities such as Shanghai Jiao Tong University, while providing students with an industrial practice platform,achieving two-way matching between talent cultivation and industry demand.
A relevant official of the District AI Industry Cluster Party Committee said that the university-enterprise cooperation between 3Srobotics and Shanghai University of Engineering Science is a vivid microcosm of Party-building-led deep industry-academia-research integration. Going forward, Songjiang will continue to leverage the red bond of industrial-cluster Party committees, promoting deep integration of Party-building work with scientific and technological innovation and industrial development, so that the Party flag is planted in enterprise buildings and innovation frontiers, boosting regional industry high-quality development with a steady stream of red momentum.
