Novel Si named winner of tech competition

The seventh Zhongguancun International Advanced Technology Competition wrapped up in Beijing on Friday, unveiling the winner list.

Novel Si Integration Technology, a Shanghai-based startup focusing on silicon-based heterogeneous substrates, emerged as the champion out of 22 finalists.

"We hope to help solve the bottleneck problems in key components with our innovation achievements and make contributions to the country's homegrown chips," the company's chairman Ou Xin said during the award ceremony on Friday.

"We will continue our efforts to transform our research results into new quality productive forces," Ou said.

In second place were Neuracle Technology in Beijing and Photonic Crystal Technology in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Meanwhile, Zhipu AI, a developer of AI large model, North Ocean Photonics, and Grand Hitek were tied in third place.

"After the final competition, a stream of investors, industrial parks' representatives and intellectual property partners reached out to me for collaboration," said Wang Yujing, chief technology officer of Neuracle. "The event offered us a prominent stage, enhancing our visibility in the industry."

Launched in March 2023, this session of the competition was aimed at projects from 10 fields. These included biomedicine, artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, big data and cloud computing. Of the total 3,164 project submissions, more than 40 percent were from overseas, indicating the event's progress in international involvement.

The competition also increased the prize money while expanding the scope of award recipients this year, according to Gong Weimi, deputy director of the Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park.

The winner was given an award of 1 million yuan ($137,996). Runners-up, as well as the top three projects in each field, shared nearly 3 million yuan.

In addition to pecuniary rewards, the event has established a service system for outstanding contestants, involving investment, talent recruitment, market matchmaking and listing guidance.

During the competition, the contestant Beijing Yixin Intelligent Technology, a startup in the big data industry, secured "angel investment" of 30 million yuan and signed a cooperation agreement with the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, according to the company's CEO Xiao Ye. An angel investor is a wealthy individual who provides seed money for a startup, usually in exchange for equity.

Under the cooperation agreement, the area will support Xiao's company including rent subsidies and talent grants.

As a key part of the annual Zhongguancun Forum, Gong said the competition has become a high-level platform for sci-tech cooperation and exchanges globally, as well as an important channel to select and nurture tech startups.

Since the competition launched in 2017, it has attracted 15,000 cutting-edge projects and provided subsidies of more than 800 million yuan to 219 enterprises.

Among the participating companies, 22 have become unicorn enterprises and 14 have gone public. A unicorn enterprise is a startup worth more than $1 billion.

zhanglinwan@chinadaily.com.cn