This discussion begins with an exploration of CATL's business scope. In recent years, the company's boundaries have continuously expanded, moving from passenger vehicles to commercial vehicles, from electric ships to electric aviation, from power grids to energy storage system operations, and even crossing over into AI and robotics. Is this expansion a top-down strategic design, or is it a bottom-up response driven by market forces?
CATL's vision is to make outstanding contributions to humanity's new energy endeavors, aspiring to become a world-class innovative technology company. The combination of these two goals leads to a wide range of applications. Batteries for passenger and commercial vehicles represent the replacement of fossil fuels with new energy in the transportation sector. Currently, the transportation and power sectors are in a phase of industrializing new energy, with an ever-growing array of new energy products. The next phase is the "new energy-ization" of industries.
Therefore, none of our expansions have exceeded our vision. It's a matter of what capabilities you have reached; you cannot expand when you lack the capability. If you don't have something unique or superior, wouldn't you just be adding to the chaos? How would you expand in the market? Through low-price competition? That's not what I want to do. We definitely enter a new field only after we possess core competitiveness.
We are contemplating the foundational pillars of humanity's entire new energy undertaking. Where are the key points and the non-critical areas? How can we achieve having what others don't and being better where others are present?
Has CATL achieved this in all the businesses it has currently entered? Expectations are high, aiming for 80% of offerings to be unique and 20% to be superior to competitors. The current situation might be the reverse.
Are there any absolute red lines that CATL will not cross? There are many things we avoid, such as life sciences and health, which are very hot right now. We don't have capabilities in that area, so we don't touch it. Our expansions are all centered around our core competencies. Regarding robotics, current robots can't even run a full marathon, so energy efficiency and density are critically important for them. In the AI field, we are not saying we want to compete with AI companies within AI itself, but AI consumes energy. Ultimately, your AI-driven data centers and tokens are essentially energy. So, we hope to make some contributions within the energy solutions for AI data centers.
What is the underlying logic that runs through all these business expansions? First, it must be within the framework of our vision. Second, can you make an outstanding contribution? For me, entering a new field requires meeting three conditions. First, the market in that field must be large enough; you shouldn't laboriously enter a new field with a very small market. Second, the field must have high barriers to entry; otherwise, everyone would come in. Third, the technology in the new field should be adjacent to your current technology, something you can transition to, what we call adjacent technology. If it's a completely new technology, a newcomer with no accumulated experience rushing in would have a low probability of success. If we can master these three rules, then we can expand into any field.