As a long-time follower and facilitator of the hardcore technology field, 36Kr recently released the list of “Investigation: The Top 100 Most Investor-trusted Hard & Core Technology Companies Of 2022”, to provide a list of China's hardcore technology enterprises for the reference of industries, institutions and the market. PATEO CONNECT+, as a leader in China’s Internet of Vehicles (IoV) field, has made it to the list by virtue of its strength.

Upon entering the 21st century, hardcore technologies have shifted to areas like chips, AI and biotechnology. In the past years, thanks to policy support, continuous technological advancement and buoyant market demand, the investment in the track of hardcore technologies has been flourishing and growing vigorously.

As a long-time follower and facilitator of the hardcore technology field, 36Kr recently released the list of “Investigation: The Top 100 Most Investor-trusted Hard & Core Technology Companies Of 2022”, to provide a list of China's hardcore technology enterprises for the reference of industries, institutions and the market.

What Is a Hardcore Technology Enterprise?

According to the “Interpretation of the ‘Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035 of the People’s Republic of China’” jointly compiled by the Financial and Economic Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), hardcore technologies refer to the "key and core technologies (KCTs) that are based upon scientific discoveries and technological inventions; require long-term R&D investment and continuous accumulation; have higher technical thresholds and specific application scenarios; are difficult to be copied and imitated; and play a major supporting role in economic and social development”.

At present, their representative fields include chips, artificial intelligence (AI), aviation & aerospace, biotechnology, information technology, new materials, new energy, and smart manufacturing (SM). It is not difficult to see that compared with social media, e-commerce, O2O and sharing economy that the venture capital circle was keen to invest in before, they boast higher thresholds and greater practical significance.

Throughout the history of global and human technologies, hardcore technologies have always been at the high end of the global value chain, featuring high intellectual property (IP) barriers, high capital investment, high information intensity, high value-added products, high industrial control and so on, hence an important measure of a country's core competitiveness, as well as one of the typical representatives of core & high technologies.

List of “Investigation: The Top 100 Most Investor-trusted Hard & Core Technology Companies Of 2022” Released

In this investigation, we tried to find out where the tidal waves of the hardcore technology industry are surging. The following are some excellent enterprises recommended in the fields of automotive technology, semiconductor & integrated circuit (IC), new energy, AI, SM and enterprise service, among others.

Automotive Technology – PATEO CONNECT+

As a leading enterprise in China’s intelligent connectivity field, since its establishment 13 years ago, PATEO has cumulatively invested nearly CNY 2 billion in R&D, and applied for a cumulative total of over 6,000 intellectual property rights (IPRs), more than 85% of which are invention patents. Its client base covers nearly 30 luxury, joint venture & self-owned auto brands and nearly 100 vehicle models, with business maintaining a high growth rate every year.

On the strength of its technology accumulation and product delivery experience over the years, it has possessed core technology platforms in operating system (OS), intelligent voice, hardware, map, cloud, etc., and been providing R&D, manufacturing and subsequent supporting services of intelligent telematics system. At the same time, on the basis of SOA (service-oriented architecture) and software-defined vehicle (SDV), it provides user-oriented software application development and operation in the smart cockpit, body control and intelligent driving domains.

Today, hardcore technologies have become a strategic support for China to rise as a scientific and technological powerhouse, and also a focus of the great-power game. As early as 2010, a State Council executive meeting had deliberated and adopted in principle the "Decision of the State Council on Accelerating the Cultivation and Development of Strategic Emerging Industries", defining energy conservation & environmental protection, information, biology, high-end equipment manufacturing, new energy, new material, new energy vehicle (NEV) and other hardcore technologies as the strategic emerging industries that are to be taken as development priorities at the present stage.

Since then, the state has also unveiled new policies multiple times to encourage the development of technology enterprises. Especially in 2019, the launch of China's Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) STAR Market has established a new financing channel for emerging sci-tech innovation enterprises. With the policy, capital and improvement in industrial ecosystem acting as joint boosters, hardcore technology enterprises represented by PATEO will definitely contribute more highlight moments.