New center boost for city's ambition
A driverless bus on show at Accenture's new China Digital Hub can offer shuttle services within a park or community.
A new innovation center has opened in Shanghai, boosting the city's ambition to become a global scientific and innovation hub.
The China Digital Hub from Accenture, a multinational professional services company, features the latest robotic arm, an automated bus and a manufacturing process simulator. It is based at the Changyang Campus in Yangpu District, a downtown innovation focal point in a renovated textile factory from the 1920s.
Accenture’s second innovation hub in China, following one in Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, will help local enterprises and an increasing number of startups reinvent their products and services to achieve new levels of efficiency, the company said.
It will bring latest thinking and capabilities mainly in digital engineering, digital manufacturing, smart connected products and services as well as digital sales and marketing, it said. The hub will also collaborate with an extensive range of partners, helping clients tap into Shanghai’s robust innovation ecosystem, according to the hub.
"Shanghai has become China’s growth engine, which attracts world-class talent and enterprises,” said Zhu Wei, chairman of Accenture China. "The opening of the Industry X.0-focused Digital Hub in Shanghai will help Chinese companies apply innovation at scale and accelerate their digital transformation.”
An engineer checks an intelligent robotic arm at the newly unveiled China Digital Hub.
An engineer tests a multifunctional driving simulator at Accenture's new innovation center.
The innovative hub features a studio where clients can design and develop prototypes of products and services. The center will also help clients take advantage of digital technologies, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things.
A delivery center will industrialize the delivery of Accenture innovations while unlocking the power of the "New Internet" and transform business processes, the hub said.
The company also has innovation centers in India, Australia, Ireland, Spain, Singapore, Japan, Switzerland and North America. Its innovation hub in Shenzhen specializes in applied research and development activities in artificial intelligence and robotics.
The Changyang Campus, the former Donghua Textile Factory, now has nearly 300 startups and technology firms. About 20 percent are engaged in the research and development of artificial intelligence.
China's Internet giant Baidu has said it is to set up its first innovation center in the campus, along with an artificial intelligence experience center. An unmanned shuttle bus known as Apollo can carry guests around the campus.
A research center for brain-like computing chips is also based at the Yangpu campus, part of a national campaign to take the lead in AI.
The center operated by NeuHelium, a startup established by Fudan University, the Yangpu District government and local AI company ENNEW in 2017, focuses on euromorphic chips, which are capable of processing and reacting to information in real time like the human brain.
A view of Accenture's new China Digital Hub at the Changyang Campus in Yangpu District
