On September 16, the World Economic Forum (WEF) officially announced the 14th batch of lighthouse factories, with 12 lighthouse factories selected to join the lighthouse network, bringing the cumulative total to 201 lighthouse factories. The latest batch covers 7 countries, with 6 located in China. Haier's Shanghai washing machine connected factory and Chongqing refrigerator connected factory successfully joined the global lighthouse network with breakthrough achievements in AI-powered smart manufacturing and talent innovation. This brings Haier's total to 12 "lighthouse factories," including 1 "sustainable lighthouse" factory and 1 "talent lighthouse" factory, making it the Chinese company with the most lighthouse factories globally, demonstrating Haier's deep expertise and outstanding achievements in smart manufacturing, and representing the strong capabilities and leading position of Chinese companies in the global smart manufacturing competition.
"AI + Talent" Driven Dual Engine Innovation in Smart Manufacturing Paradigm
Lighthouse factories are jointly selected by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and McKinsey & Company, serving as exemplars of "digital manufacturing" and "Globalization 4.0," representing the highest level of global smart manufacturing and digitalization. In this round of lighthouse factory applications, the World Economic Forum added a talent lighthouse track, identifying production sites that can have transformative impacts on the workforce through advanced solutions in work design and safety, talent planning, attraction and onboarding, development and performance. By stimulating innovation vitality in every employee and creating a sustainable manufacturing talent ecosystem, Haier's Chongqing refrigerator connected factory became the first "talent lighthouse" factory. This is not only a concrete practice of the "RenDanHeYi" management model in the smart manufacturing field, but also redefines the talent development logic in smart manufacturing.
The true value of artificial intelligence lies in liberating employees from repetitive labor to engage in more valuable creation. Haier's Chongqing refrigerator connected factory practices a "people-oriented" philosophy, focusing on talent development throughout the entire lifecycle and employee growth and value realization. In talent growth planning, the connected factory built an AI-based talent development digital platform for identification and matching. By establishing precise talent profiles and empowering three-level succession planning for key positions, it reduced key position vacancy rates by 50% and shortened promotion cycles by 40%. In professional training, it launched a GenAI maintenance assistant, reducing new employee training time by 50% and improving equipment maintenance efficiency by 75%, comprehensively strengthening maintenance response capabilities and high-skilled talent reserves.
"Facing high mobility among new generation employees and production efficiency improvement bottlenecks," the World Economic Forum wrote in its selection evaluation of Haier's Chongqing refrigerator connected factory: "Haier's Chongqing refrigerator connected factory innovatively applied the 'RenDanHeYi' management model, achieving transformation from a control-oriented organization to a service-oriented platform. By deploying 35 digital and AI talent empowerment solutions, covering personalized promotion channels, innovation point incentive platforms, and intelligent team-level personnel planning based on multivariate time series forecasting, it achieved a 40% reduction in employee turnover and a 61% increase in employee active innovation participation."
Companies must either evolve with AI or be marginalized by AI, and promoting AI implementation through scenario and application-driven approaches is the core direction for enterprise development. As a global digital twin factory, Haier's Shanghai washing machine connected factory uses AI to empower the entire production chain, addressing challenges such as regional cost pressures, diverse customized product portfolios, and strict quality requirements. The Leader three-drum lazy washing machine that went viral online is a vivid practice of the connected factory "listening" to user needs and driving product innovation with AI.
In design, facing personalized challenges in the high-end market, the connected factory uses the GenAI home appliance industrial design collaboration model "Co-designer" to drive professional text-to-image models in the home appliance field, achieving a 50% reduction in user demand insight cycles and a 93% improvement in concept design efficiency. In manufacturing, through the drum dynamic balance performance optimization model, quality improved by 57%. In delivery, with the intelligent logistics scheduling decision engine, in-plant logistics turnover efficiency increased by 60%.
The World Economic Forum noted when evaluating Haier's Shanghai washing machine connected factory: "Utilizing independently developed industrial IoT platforms and GenAI-supported advanced technologies such as 3D modeling and deep learning, it achieved a 37% increase in output, 40% improvement in delivery efficiency, and 33% cost optimization."
As the Chinese company with the most lighthouse factories globally, Haier's simultaneous selection of two connected factories is not simply replicating past experiences, but deeply interpreting the underlying logic of global smart manufacturing from both "technology" and "talent" dimensions, becoming a benchmark paradigm for bidirectional empowerment of industry technological innovation and talent development.
"Forward-thinking enterprises across different industries and sectors demonstrate how to put this vision into practice, setting new standards for global operational excellence and impact." As Kiva Allgood, Director and Head of the World Economic Forum's Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains Centre, said: "Organizations that shape the future are those that drive comprehensive transformation today, integrating digital innovation, resilience, sustainability, talent development, and customer-centricity into all their work."
"Lighthouse Cluster" Leadership Injecting Lasting Momentum for Smart Manufacturing Transformation
Since evaluation began in 2018, the global lighthouse network has accumulated 201 lighthouse factories, covering over 30 countries and 35 industries. Thanks to continuous investment in digitalization, intelligence, and green development, China's total number of lighthouse factories has reached 85, accounting for approximately 42.3%, fully demonstrating the strong capabilities of Chinese manufacturing leading globally. Notably, in the global lighthouse network, there are 29 home appliance-related enterprises, of which 20 are Chinese companies, leading with a 69% share, further highlighting their leading position in the global home appliance smart manufacturing track.
As early as 2018, Haier's central air conditioning connected factory was selected for the first batch of lighthouse factories, officially beginning Haier's lighthouse factory journey. To date, Haier has built 12 lighthouse factories, not only covering multiple industries including refrigerators, washing machines, home air conditioning, smart buildings, and water heaters, but also successfully creating China's first "sustainable lighthouse" factory and "talent lighthouse" factory, making it the Chinese company with the most lighthouse factories globally across the most comprehensive dimensions.
From the first lighthouse factory to twelve, Haier's practice goes beyond numerical breakthroughs. More importantly, Haier's multiple lighthouse factories can form an interconnected, mutually learning intelligent system, creating a continuously evolving smart manufacturing ecosystem and successfully building a globally unique industry "lighthouse cluster."
Based on over 40 years of manufacturing experience, Haier pioneered the industrial internet platform COSMOPlat with mass customization at its core and full-process user participation experience, providing smart manufacturing capability support for building lighthouse factories and achieving cross-industry replication. In this released lighthouse factory list, the global first lighthouse factory in the power equipment industry and ETO mode, and the global first lighthouse factory in precision instruments and weighing equipment manufacturing industry, are typical cases of COSMOPlat empowerment.
As AI becomes the "brain" of the fourth industrial revolution, COSMOPlat provides a blueprint for the industry to build scalable, replicable AI smart manufacturing systems through mode innovation of mass personalized customization, AI-led technological innovation, and practical innovation of cross-industry empowerment. With intelligent interaction engines as core competitiveness, the platform continuously promotes deep integration of industrial internet, artificial intelligence, and industrial manufacturing. COSMOPlat's Tianzhi industrial large model has accumulated 4,700 industry mechanism models and 200 expert algorithms, having been implemented in 9 major industries including home appliances, automotive, and chemicals, promoting industrial large model applications from point intelligence to full-domain intelligence across R&D design, production manufacturing, and business management.
Meanwhile, COSMOPlat continues to empower industry lighthouse factory development through continuously upgraded technological innovation capabilities and integrated software-hardware ecosystem capabilities. Based on rich practices in technological innovation, scenario exploration, and lighthouse factories, the COSMOPlat platform has developed the industry-leading lighthouse factory "1+7" comprehensive service system, effectively helping enterprises reduce costs, increase efficiency, and achieve digital transformation. To date, COSMOPlat has cross-industry empowered the creation of 16 world-class lighthouse factories with the broadest industry coverage. It has connected over 900,000 enterprises cumulatively and served 160,000 enterprises, providing replicable solutions and practical examples for manufacturing digital and green transformation.
Over 40 years of entrepreneurship, Haier has consistently implemented "maximizing human value" throughout its operations based on the "RenDanHeYi" management model. It makes every employee their own CEO, realizing personal value in the process of creating user value, providing core momentum for the "lighthouse cluster" to continuously radiate vitality.
Lighthouse illumination not only reveals itself but also lights up the industry. The continuous growth in lighthouse factory numbers is evidence of Haier's deep cultivation and accumulated strength in digital transformation. In the future, Haier will continue to amplify the "lighthouse cluster" effect, promoting global manufacturing evolution toward higher quality and greater resilience, letting the benchmark power of Chinese smart manufacturing illuminate the world's industrial transformation path and inject lasting momentum for intelligent upgrades across all industries.