With the rapid development of intelligent driving technology, LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging)—as a key sensor for autonomous vehicles—plays an indispensable role in autonomous driving systems, thanks to its advantages such as high-precision distance measurement, high angular resolution, and strong anti-interference capabilities. Against this backdrop, the market scale of the civilian LiDAR industry has grown steadily in recent years, gradually becoming a focus of the industry, and related enterprises and companies have emerged like mushrooms after rain.

Nanjing Shuwei Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shuwei Intelligence") was established in this era context. Dr. Song Wenhua, the founder, has accumulated rich experience and technical expertise over 12 years from his time in university to entrepreneurship. In particular, his early project experience in the field of military LiDAR laid a solid foundation for the establishment of Shuwei Intelligence. After the rise of domestic intelligent driving technology, Dr. Song seized the development opportunity and resolutely entered the field, transforming his previous technical accumulation in military LiDAR into the civilian LiDAR sector, and innovatively proposed the product thinking model of "LiDAR + Algorithm". After several years of accumulation, the company has now developed into a leading innovative enterprise in Nanjing’s LiDAR industry.

Amid the wave of informatization and intelligence, the LiDAR industry, with its outstanding performance and wide application fields, has become an important driving force for global technological innovation and industrial upgrading. As a representative of modern optical remote sensing technology, LiDAR not only provides key technical support for cutting-edge technology fields such as unmanned driving and robot navigation but also injects new vitality into the realization of grand blueprints such as Industry 4.0 and social intelligent transformation. China has also included the LiDAR industry as a key target in its development plans and formulated a series of policies to promote industrial development. Documents such as the National Guidelines for the Construction of the Internet of Vehicles Industry Standard System (Intelligent Connected Vehicles) (2023 Edition) and the Implementation Plan for the New Industry Standardization Leadership Project (2023-2035) have made clear guidance and requirements for the development of the LiDAR industry.

Dr. Song Wenhua, a graduate of the Optical Engineering major at Nanjing University of Science and Technology, has many years of experience in LiDAR R&D and industrialization. A military LiDAR project he participated in and led the research on won the first prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2019, accumulating rich research experience and achievements in the field of military LiDAR. In 2020, the rise of domestic intelligent driving technology ushered in a new era for the development of the LiDAR industry. The continuous improvement of the industrial chain gradually reduced the cost of LiDAR, promoting its commercial application in fields such as intelligent transportation, urban planning, and industrial manufacturing. After a detailed investigation of the industry, Dr. Song Wenhua resolutely entered the field, led his team to take root in Nanjing, and marched into the civilian LiDAR industry.

Nanjing, a time-honored ancient city, has shown strong innovation and enterprising spirit in modern times, creating a hotbed for the development of high-tech industries. Firstly, benefiting from Nanjing’s rich higher education resources, Shuwei Intelligence’s R&D team has been able to continuously attract outstanding talents in related fields to join the company, ensuring that the company can continuously iterate and innovate in technology and create products that keep up with the needs of the times and lead the industry in technology. Secondly, Nanjing has a strong manufacturing industry and a relatively complete industrial chain, with a number of enterprises with global competitiveness in the fields of optical systems and electronic components. With the rapid development of fields such as unmanned driving and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), Nanjing’s LiDAR industry has also ushered in unprecedented development opportunities. At the same time, the government attaches great importance to technological innovation and industrial development, and has issued a number of policies such as the Nanjing Action Plan for Further Promoting the Innovative Development of Artificial Intelligence (2024-2026) and the Implementation Plan for Nanjing’s Demonstration Action to Promote the In-depth Integration of Advanced Manufacturing and Modern Service Industries. These policies encourage enterprises to apply LiDAR technology innovation to new scenarios and provide enterprises with relevant preferential policies and special subsidies, providing strong policy guarantees for the rise of Nanjing’s civilian LiDAR industry. In addition, Nanjing’s LiDAR industry is still in the development stage, and the relatively loose market environment reduces fierce competition among enterprises, leaving sufficient development space for start-ups like Shuwei Intelligence.

As a high-precision measurement sensor, LiDAR has good development prospects in many industries. However, domestic LiDAR enterprises started late and have a low degree of scale, so there is a great opportunity for companies with technology development capabilities to realize domestic replacement. However, every step—from raw material procurement to precision processing and strict quality inspection—requires a large amount of capital investment and highly professional technical support. In particular, the huge capital demand for early R&D investment has deterred many enterprises attempting to enter this field.

As early as 2019, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group noticed the huge potential development prospects of the domestic LiDAR industry in the future and its great significance for the development of modern science and technology and industry. It then began to lay out plans in the industry and seek LiDAR enterprises with development potential and investment value for investment.

Shuwei Intelligence attracted the attention of Nanjing Innovation Investment Group at an industry exchange event. After in-depth research on Shuwei Intelligence, based on the huge potential of Shuwei Intelligence in terms of technical strength, R&D team, and commercial prospects, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group, through the Nanjing Science and Technology Innovation Fund under its entrusted management, joined hands with Chuangyi Yiqi Lihe Fund (a sub-fund of the Venture Capital Group), Murong Capital (Singapore), Jingfeng Group, Ralph Venture Capital and other institutions to help Shuwei Intelligence complete a Pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan in 2022.

After Shuwei Intelligence emerged in the industry with its outstanding market performance and strong technical background, it soon attracted attention from all parties, and major investors successively extended olive branches to it. However, after comprehensive consideration, Shuwei Intelligence chose to join hands with Nanjing Innovation Investment Group to jointly plan the future of Nanjing’s LiDAR industry. A relevant person in charge of the Fourth Investment Department of Nanjing Innovation Investment Group said that the investment in Shuwei Intelligence was mainly based on two considerations: "Firstly, the core team of Shuwei Intelligence has long been committed to the R&D and industrialization of military LiDAR projects, with solid technical capabilities and independent algorithm capabilities for micro high-repetition-rate LiDAR. Secondly, Shuwei Intelligence’s ‘LiDAR + Algorithm’ laser solution uses the advantages of algorithms to reduce the cost of its modules, lower the threshold of industrialization, and is a cost-effective LiDAR solution."

Since 2021, with the gradual maturity of unmanned driving technology and the implementation of some application scenarios, the LiDAR track has continued to be hot. The completion of the Pre-A round of financing, on the one hand, solved the urgent need for huge early R&D investment for Shuwei Intelligence, which had just been established, and helped Shuwei Intelligence iterate and upgrade its products. On the other hand, relying on its own advantages, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group helped Shuwei Intelligence open up the market and find directions in the industry. At present, the high-precision laser sensors (core components) independently developed by Shuwei Intelligence have successfully broken through the technical bottlenecks related to micro high-repetition-rate laser emission, and have applied for or obtained nearly 50 patents and software copyrights; it has completed the development and mass production of ranging laser sensors positioned for industrial automation scenarios, 2D rotating LiDAR for robot positioning and navigation, and MEMS semi-solid-state LiDAR products for forward target detection and recognition. It has basically realized the nationalization of core components, miniaturization of product size, standardization of mass production, and integration of core algorithms. Next, Shuwei Intelligence will continue to focus on product R&D and iteration, and expand more commercial application scenarios.

In recent years, the price of LiDAR has continued to decline. According to estimates by Guolian Securities, the average price of LiDAR used in ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) will drop by 15.56% year-on-year to 3,800 yuan in 2024. At the same time, against the background of the current global supply chain tension, the price fluctuations and supply instability of key raw materials have brought considerable pressure on the production cost of LiDAR. In addition, on-board LiDAR products need to meet more stringent automotive-grade standards in terms of standards. This requires LiDAR enterprises to invest heavily in multiple links such as R&D, design, and production, and every step requires strict control and precision operation to ensure the quality and performance of products. As a result, the profit space of enterprises has been continuously compressed, and difficulties in making profits and long capital return cycles have become common situations in this field.

In addition, the "involution" among peers has also led to a continuous decline in product prices. However, in order to maintain technological leadership and market share, enterprises have to invest a lot of funds in R&D and production. This dual pressure makes profit-making a common problem faced by the industry. Under such circumstances, even Hesai Technology, a leading enterprise in the industry, has only barely achieved profitability in 2023 since its establishment in 2014, which shows the difficulty of survival for LiDAR manufacturing enterprises. As a new industry player established for less than 5 years, Shuwei Intelligence has successfully achieved a balance of payments since its establishment in 2020, becoming a successful profit-making case in the industry.

A key factor in Shuwei Intelligence’s success is the five complete LiDAR production lines independently designed by the company, which enable the company’s product yield rate to reach more than 99.5%. "Our current production lines are all independently developed and designed to match the production of our products. Improving production capacity and yield rate through independently designed production lines is also one of our core capabilities," said Deng Ye, Deputy General Manager of Shuwei Intelligence. The independently designed production lines allow the company to carry out refined design of the production process according to its own production needs and product characteristics, thereby reducing unnecessary production links and bottlenecks, improving the efficiency of material flow, personnel flow, and information flow, realizing the maximum utilization of resources, and thus increasing the overall production capacity and yield rate.

On the other hand, the founder, Dr. Song, has been deeply engaged in the LiDAR field for more than ten years. His in-depth understanding and unique insights into LiDAR technology have enabled him to always maintain a leading position in technology in the industry. With his profound accumulation and forward-looking vision of this technology, Dr. Song has not only accurately grasped the pulse of LiDAR technology development but also demonstrated outstanding technical strength in product R&D and practical application. His rich experience and technical strength have provided a solid theoretical basis for the company’s product design and R&D, and also provided strong technical support for the implementation and application of products.

Finally, as a backbone force in the LiDAR industry, Shuwei Intelligence has demonstrated outstanding market insight and rapid response capabilities in addressing the shortcomings of foreign manufacturers in responding to customer needs and solving product pain points. The company has a deep understanding of market needs, is customer demand-oriented, and quickly launches technical R&D and product optimization to address industry pain points. Through continuous innovation and iteration, Shuwei Intelligence focuses on the practical problems faced by customers and strives to provide more accurate and efficient LiDAR solutions. Its customer-centric service concept and efficient response speed have won wide trust and recognition from customers, enabling Shuwei Intelligence to stand out in the fierce market competition and become a leading enterprise in the industry.

At present, China has taken a leading position in the global LiDAR field, occupying more than half of the global market. According to data released by Patent Result, a Japanese patent research company, since 2000, Chinese enterprises have submitted 25,957 LiDAR-related patent applications, while American enterprises have submitted 18,821 and Japanese enterprises 13,939.

The domestic LiDAR market is highly competitive. The prosperity of autonomous driving and low-altitude economy has brought about the prosperity of the LiDAR manufacturing industry, but the rapid growth of enterprises has put forward higher requirements for the market scale. Major manufacturers are forced to continuously compress profit margins to seize market share, making it difficult for enterprises to survive. With the acceleration of globalization, the strong demand for LiDAR technology in the international market has gradually been noticed, and going overseas may become a way for domestic LiDAR manufacturing enterprises to break through the predicament.

Shuwei Intelligence has also keenly captured this huge market opportunity in the overseas market and plans to start deploying the overseas market this year or next. To this end, Shuwei Intelligence will continue to actively adjust its products and services to meet the challenges of the overseas market. The company will continue to make efforts in optimizing and iterating products to ensure that their technical performance and quality reach the international leading level. At the same time, products sold to the overseas market will be designed and developed in strict accordance with the mainstream standards of the international market to reduce the cost of customers replacing products, solve problems from the perspective of customers, and strive to successfully open up the overseas market, accumulate product reputation, and shape the image of Chinese products going overseas.

However, this process is not smooth and faces multiple challenges. In the international market, some consumers and purchasers often hold the inherent concept that "Chinese products are low-priced and low-quality". This stereotype not only limits the pricing space of Chinese enterprises such as Shuwei Intelligence but also makes these enterprises need to invest more efforts and costs in brand promotion and market expansion. On the other hand, the complexity of geopolitics and the delay in responding to the overseas market are also challenges that Shuwei Intelligence needs to face.

In response to the current situation where foreign giants occupy a dominant position in the market with their technological advantages and brand benefits, and the price of domestic products is far lower than that of similar foreign products, Deng Ye, Deputy General Manager of Shuwei Intelligence, also said: "In fact, the gap between each industry and foreign countries is not a comparison between a single industry, but requires the joint participation and competition of the entire relevant industrial chain." Against the background of globalization, Chinese LiDAR enterprises are embarking on the journey of exploring the overseas market, while also competing fiercely with international giants that occupy a dominant position in the domestic market. This is a long and variable competition, and domestic enterprises are currently in a relatively weak position, but this is not due to the lack of a single technology or the weakness of a certain industry. On the contrary, the deep-seated reason is that the integrity and coordination of the domestic industrial chain still need to be improved.

In this competition comparing the scientific and technological strength of major countries, Deng Ye is full of confidence in China’s LiDAR industry. "From the upstream to the midstream, the domestic industry is actually relatively weak, but from the downstream, Chinese enterprises are far ahead of foreign countries, so on-board LiDAR is ‘developing rapidly’ in China. In the future, the main battlefield of electric vehicles and intelligent driving will still be in China. In the future, Shuwei Intelligence will combine emerging industries and future industries that the country focuses on developing, such as low-altitude economy, UAVs, and robots, focus on high-end markets and quality, strive to realize the nationalization of industrial optoelectronic sensors, and accelerate the cultivation of new quality productive forces in the LiDAR field," Deng Ye said.