Walking through the industrial landscape of the Jianghuai region, a new chapter of development is unfolding. The province of Anhui has deeply implemented its plans for a modern industrial system and a "future industries" incubation project.
A silver device, showcased at the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory in Hefei's Zhong'an Chuanggu Technology Park, catches the eye. This is a lunar soil water-ice extraction system, designed to "harvest water" from the Moon. Hu Chaobin, the lab's Party Committee Secretary, explains that the machine uses two spiral drill bits to penetrate ice-bearing lunar soil. The ice is then heated to produce water vapor, which condenses into collectable water ice at a rate of 10 to 50 grams per hour. The development of this device has bridged the "last mile" in utilizing lunar water resources, laying the groundwork for deep-space resource extraction.
In the exhibition hall of China Telecom Quantum Group in the Hefei High-tech Zone, two products integrating quantum technology stand out. One is a phone embedded with a quantum SIM card, generating a unique quantum key for every call to enhance communication security. The other is a quantum cloud seal that provides real-time traceability, acting like "eyes" on a stamp to record where and on what it's used. Hefei is a crucial birthplace of quantum technology and the headquarters of China Telecom Quantum. In recent years, the pace of industrializing key quantum technologies, including quantum communication and quantum computing, has accelerated in the city. "We have integrated quantum security technologies into our core business and launched a range of tech products," says a company leader.
The Zhong'an Chuanggu Technology Park, where China Telecom Quantum is located, is home to 13 neighboring quantum companies. Nearby, the "Quantum Avenue" clusters over 30 leading quantum tech enterprises, covering the entire spectrum of quantum computing, communication, and measurement. From basic research to industrialization, a complete quantum technology ecosystem has been established.
At the intersection of Zhongjiang Avenue and Chishan Road in Wuhu, traffic flows steadily under the direction of a special "traffic police officer." A robot stands in the middle of the road, its mechanical arm precisely executing standard command gestures like "go straight," "turn left," and "stop," working in tandem with human traffic police officers to manage basic traffic control and flow. Developed by Mojia Robot Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Chery Group, this intelligent police robot has been deployed in over 110 units across more than 30 cities in China during the first half of this year.
"Leveraging Chery Group's strengths in manufacturing, supply chains, and global distribution channels, Mojia robots have delivered over 2,000 units worldwide, with products landing in more than 60 countries and regions. Their applications span automotive sales services, smart policing, and medical guidance," says Zhang Guibing, Executive Vice President of Chery Automobile and General Manager of Mojia Robotics.
Since being approved in 2013 as the nation's first national-level pilot zone for the robotics industry cluster, Wuhu City has used the Chery Automobile industrial chain as a "mother base." This has given rise to leading robotics companies like Effort and Mojia, fostering a complete ecosystem encompassing "components, complete machine manufacturing, system integration, and application scenarios." The cluster now comprises over 300 upstream and downstream enterprises, with an industry scale reaching 40 billion yuan.
The rapid growth of the robotics industry is underpinned by solid infrastructure like computing power. "We provide efficient computational support for robot training, AI algorithm iteration, and massive data processing, accelerating the entry of embodied intelligence industries into the large-scale commercial track," says Hu Rong, Chairman of Wuhu Big Data Construction and Investment Co., Ltd.
As a key hub for the "East Data, West Computing" project in the Yangtze River Delta, Wuhu is accelerating the construction of its computing infrastructure. By July this year, the city had built 224,700 standard server racks, with an intelligent computing power scale of 64,000 P (1P equals approximately one quadrillion calculations per second). This computing capacity is equivalent to the simultaneous work of about 32 million high-performance computers.
In Lu'an City, located in western Anhui, institutional innovation has been the key to driving the high-quality development of the entire hydrogen energy industry chain. Hydrogen production and refueling are now neighbors. In the Tomorrow Hydrogen Energy Industrial Park, hydrogen produced via solar power is piped directly to the adjacent refueling station, greatly simplifying the costly storage and transportation process. In 2024, Lu'an introduced a policy allowing integrated hydrogen production and refueling stations to be built outside chemical industry parks, provided they meet safety production conditions.
"Previously, these stations were only permitted within chemical industry parks, which kept hydrogen sources far from major application scenarios like urban transportation," says Wang Chaoyun, Chairman of Tomorrow Hydrogen. He believes that since hydrogen storage and transport costs account for a significant portion of the final price, this policy helps reduce hydrogen transportation costs and opens up new space for industry growth.
In the realms of general artificial intelligence, low-altitude economy, brain-computer interfaces, stem cells, and chips, cities like Hefei, Wuhu, Bengbu, Huainan, and Chizhou are each developing future industries based on their local circumstances, fostering a coordinated and multi-tiered approach. To date, the total output of the entire industry chain across Anhui's first batch of 10 provincial-level future industry pilot zones exceeds 93 billion yuan. The industrial chains for directions such as general and embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, biomanufacturing, 6G, and hydrogen energy are continuously strengthening, with innovation factors gathering momentum. This is driving future industries to take shape and form powerful clusters.