The Zhuhai Autonomous Boat Technology Harbor project currently under construction will be completed by the end of this year and is expected to be put into use in June of next year, said Zhang Yunfei, chairman of the Yunzhou-Tech Company, Zhuhai Daily reports.
The technology harbor, invested in and built by Yunzhou-Tech, is China's first base for research, development and tests of autonomous boats as well as an incubator base for the industry. "The harbor can help us speed up the technological accumulation and iteration by 5 to ten times," said Zhang.
Based on the testing demands of autonomous boats, the harbor owns an indoor laboratory, a test pool and an experimental zone at sea with 108 test programs under eight categories. "The harbor is our company's base for research, development and tests. Many tests of the autonomous boats have to be conducted on the water, thus test efficiency is crucial for our company to upgrade our technology and lead the industry," Zhang added.
The technology harbor, covering 32,000 square meters, will become a comprehensive platform integrating manufacturing and research for the autonomous boat industry, the marine smart equipment industry, high-tech enterprises, research academies and major universities.
"We will draw up a plan for the development of a city cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area," Premier Li Keqiang said in a government work report on March 5. The plan will help better allocate innovative industrial resources in the greater bay area.
According to Zhang, China now has an unprecedentedly large demand for autonomous boat technology; Yunzhou-Tech aims to enhance the development speed of the industry through building such a technology harbor.
