New hub integrates all of ABB’s activities in southeastern coastal city to create state-of-the-art campus specializing in advanced technologies
Pioneering technology leader ABB today inaugurated its new ABB Xiamen Hub, the company’s largest innovation and manufacturing hub worldwide. The new site in this vital coastal city integrates the full value chain of ABB’s activities, including R&D, engineering, manufacturing, sales and service, as well as supply chain management and corporate functions.
Representing an investment of US$300 million, this new center – which employs 3,500 people – builds on the US$2.4 billion ABB has invested in China since 1992. Constructed and equipped using the latest environmentally sound materials and systems, including ABB’s record-breaking fast-charging stations for electric vehicles, the site sets new standards in sustainability. It is designed to provide state-of-the-art solutions and services for ABB customers in China, and it also enables the company to demonstrate the potential of Industry 4.0 on its own premises.
The ABB Xiamen Hub will focus primarily on the development and manufacturing of products and solutions for ABB’s Electrification Products and Power Grids divisions. It is home to one of ABB’s largest R&D centers for low-voltage electrical systems as well as a 1,200kV ultra-high voltage test lab, the highest voltage level in China. The site also has ABB’s first digitally connected remote service center in China. Since the launch of ABB’s leading ABB Ability™ digital offering last year, the Group’s digital business in China has doubled in size.
The inauguration ceremony of the Xiamen Hub was attended by Pei Jinjia, Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xiamen Municipal Committee, and other government representatives, ABB customers from the utility, industry, and transport & infrastructure sectors, and ABB Group and local management, including ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. ABB is also hosting a major event in Xiamen this week – ABB Customer World – which will bring in more than 6,000 people from around the globe.
“Xiamen has long been one of the most important industrial bases for ABB in China and globally,” said Chunyuan Gu, President of ABB’s Asia, Middle East and Africa region. “The city was home to our first joint venture in China 26 years ago and has played a crucial role in the development of ABB in China, where we now employ 18,000 people in more than 140 cities.”
The new hub is one of a number of major new investments ABB has made in China. In October, the company announced a US$150 million investment in a new robotics “factory of the future” in Shanghai. In May, it inaugurated a new Robotics Application Center in Chongqing, the company’s fourth such site in China. And in December 2017, it opened the ABB Shenzhen New Energy Technology Center, which carries out research and development for solar and electric-vehicle-charging solutions for use around the world.
