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On July 18th, one of the six global information technology research and development centers of BMW Group, the first and only information technology research and development center in China and the largest information technology research and development base in Asia were established in Nanjing. Nanjing released the article “BMW Increases Holdings in Nanjing”, which quickly surpassed 100,000 views and became a bestseller. Netizens left comments such as “Investing in Nanjing is investing in the future”, “A loving mutual pursuit”, and “Come on, Nanjing”.
The statement by Dai Hexuan, President and CEO of BMW Brilliance, “Nanjing is the gateway for us to enter China’s innovation ecosystem,” also went viral.
The global R&D center of BSH Home Appliances located in Nanjing.
In one sentence, it expresses the sentiments of so many multinational enterprises.
Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances, which owns multiple well-known brands such as Bosch home Appliances, Siemens Home appliances, and Gaggenau, has established its global R&D center and the Bosch and Siemens China National Electrical Talent Center here. Global mining machinery giant Amberto, which has moved its China headquarters to Nanjing, has successively held innovation day events and continuously launched new products. As the research headquarters of McDonald’s China, the brand-new building of McDonald’s China Technology Research and Development Center was officially put into use in Nanjing…
Looking at Nanjing today, factories and research and development centers of multinational enterprises are everywhere. From a “manufacturing base” to a “research and development hotbed”, from a “world factory” to an “innovation laboratory”, conducting research and development and seeking innovation have become the new “posture” for multinational enterprises to invest in Nanjing. The industrial chain, value chain and innovation chain of global enterprises’ investment in Nanjing have been constantly rising.
There are innovative talents here
At BMW’s global Information Technology research and development center, employees are discussing technical solutions.
In July, BMW Group officially announced that the test vehicle of the domestic version of the BMW iX3, the first new-generation model specifically designed for the Chinese market, was undergoing verification and testing in China. One of the highlights of this car is its “powerful intelligent ‘brain'”.
As the automotive industry enters a new stage of competition centered on intelligence, various key technologies also pose new challenges to the R&D capabilities of enterprises. The code volume of a single BMW 5 Series exceeds 100 million lines, involving multiple technologies such as assisted driving, ECU control, cloud/back-end, and mobile applications. Whether it is software development and testing or iterative optimization, it requires strong talent support.
Nanjing is the center of IT talents, with a profound accumulation and a large number of technology companies gathered here. If you need IT talents or need to solve IT problems, coming to Nanjing is a natural choice. Dai Hexuan explained it this way.
At present, the world is in a new period of technological transformation. Nanjing is brimming with innovative talents in science and technology, making it a key support for multinational companies to keep up with global technological changes and enhance their competitiveness.
At the McDonald’s China Technology Research and Development Center, staff members are introducing the latest hardware system.
In Building 38 of Baijiahui Innovation Community in Xuzhuang High-tech Zone, the building with the white words “McDonald’s” hanging on it stands out conspicuously. Last August, the China research headquarters of global food giant McDonald’s was officially put into use. Nowadays, products or systems here are updated and iterated almost every week.
Chen Guangbing, the administrative and financial director of McDonald’s Technology Research and Development Center, said that about 40% of the employees in the center graduated from local universities in Nanjing. They are familiar with the local digital ecosystem and understand the needs of Chinese consumers, which are valuable resources for the company to carry out “self-research and innovation”.
As a renowned city for science and education, Nanjing is most proud of its over 50 institutions of higher learning, more than 120 national-level research and development platforms, 96 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and over one million college students. In April this year, the professional evaluation agency for higher education, Shanghairanking Consultancy, officially released the “2025 Shanghairanking China University Rankings”. Sixteen universities in Nanjing made it to the main list, among which a total of 11 universities were included in the top 100 of the main list. Here, the talent advantage is continuously unleashed, and multinational enterprises that seek innovation and change are able to ride the waves and forge ahead.
In the laboratory of BSH Home Appliances’ global R&D center, staff members are conducting equipment tests.
Having been rooted in Nanjing for nearly 30 years, the established German company BSH Home Appliances has also been taking a series of steps, measuring the footprints of its strategic upgrade of “investing in Nanjing”.
In 1994, BSH Home Appliances crossed the ocean and entered the Chinese market for the first time. In 1997, the enterprise established BSH China Sales Company in Nanjing, building a sales and service network in China. In 2004, an home appliance park was established in Nanjing and a factory was set up. In 2011, the China R&D Center was established in Nanjing. Last year, the China R&D Center located in Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone was upgraded to a global R&D center, becoming the group’s largest comprehensive R&D center worldwide, with 700 engineers. It is worth noting that the BSH China Home Appliance Talent Center was also inaugurated on the same day.
In the view of Song Linbing, the president of BSH Home Appliances in the Greater China region, Nanjing’s talent advantage has provided nourishment for enterprise innovation. “On the one hand, through cooperation among industry, academia and research, we work hand in hand with universities to solve scientific research problems, promote the product development process, and facilitate the application of university scientific and technological achievements in enterprise practice.” On the other hand, it also creates favorable conditions for enterprises to cultivate high-potential talents and enhance their own competitiveness.
There is an innovative environment here
When conducting hole-making operations, this system can move all the operations that people perform underground to the surface, can’t it?
Yes, by using the Simba1254 medium-deep hole underground rock drilling trolley remote control system, in the ground control room, set the target hole depth, click the single-hole automatic button, issue a command with one click, and the equipment will automatically open the hole, drill, connect the rod, and wash the hole. After reaching the target hole depth, vibrate the rod and remove the rod…
In the Amberto workshop, workers are assembling equipment.
At the Amberto and Gaia Innovation Day event held in June this year, Amberto project engineer Houwentian answered the questions about a new remote-controlled device launched by the company that can “drill holes while sitting in the office” – this is one of the 28 new products released by Amberto and Gaia at this Innovation Day event.
This is already the fifth time that this multinational enterprise has held an Innovation Day event since 2020. At the Innovation Day event held in Nanjing last year, Amberto and Gaia also released 28 new products.
“Previously, whenever we participated in an exhibition, our company’s machines would be surrounded by people taking photos and videos. But at the next exhibition, there might be equipment that looks similar to ours but is cheaper on display at nearby booths.” ” Zhang Taotao, the general manager of Anbatuo (Nanjing) Construction and Mining Equipment Co., LTD., admitted that previously, the headquarters had always been hesitant about launching new products and transferring new technologies in China.
In the control room of Amberto, R&D personnel are remotely monitoring the simulated drilling rig equipment.
The government’s continuously strengthened efforts in intellectual property protection have dispelled the concerns of enterprises.
Recently, in a trademark infringement case in Nanjing, thanks to the strong support of the government, we successfully carried out a full-chain crackdown on the infringer. This has strengthened our determination to increase local R&D investment and accelerated the process of new product launches. Thomas, a senior executive of the headquarters of Amberto, said that in the first half of this year, with the support of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau and the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone, a counterfeit factory of the Amberto brand was investigated and dealt with, helping the brand recover losses of over 67 million yuan. Intellectual property protection encourages enterprises to invest in research and development, thereby promoting innovation and new product development.
The willingness to continuously “introduce new products” and invest in Nanjing, along with the increasing number of “confidence votes” issued by foreign capital, is inseparable from Nanjing’s commitment to providing equal protection for intellectual property rights of domestic and foreign-funded enterprises and creating a fair, open and transparent business environment.
In May this year, Nanjing issued the “Several Measures for Stabilizing Foreign Investment in 2025”, which proposed to “encourage foreign-funded enterprises to explore markets and innovate products” and “strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights for foreign-funded enterprises”. Meanwhile, the “Several Measures for Stabilizing Foreign Investment in Nanjing in 2025” clearly states that it supports foreign investment in setting up research and development centers and encourages foreign research and development institutions to take the lead in undertaking national, provincial and municipal science and technology planning projects. Support qualified foreign-funded R&D centers in applying for the recognition of functional institutions of provincial multinational companies. Encourage foreign-funded research and development institutions to carry out collaborative innovation with universities, research institutions, enterprises, etc. Set up open innovation platforms and high-quality incubators in Nanjing to accelerate the transformation of technological achievements and the cultivation of innovative enterprises.
Here lies an innovative ecosystem
Today’s Nanjing is a Nanjing that is moving towards innovation
More and more foreign enterprises
Take innovation as the greatest opportunity to invest in Nanjing
A corner of the laboratory of McDonald’s China Technology Research and Development Center.
In 2020, when we first came to Nanjing, we were a business support team of only a few dozen people. By 2024, we will have a seven-story research headquarters that can accommodate 450 technical experts, and the entire team will have made a leap forward. Chen Guangbing said that during this period, they provided a series of comprehensive local information system solutions to McDonald’s China through independent research and development. Among them are the McDonald’s App, which has been downloaded over 130 million times, and the RGM BOSS restaurant management system, which covers nearly 7,000 restaurants and 200,000 restaurant employees across the country. This makes digitalization a new competitive edge for McDonald’s China and continuously empowers the growth of our business. Chen Guangbing said.
Win-win and common progress stem from the sharing of opportunities and are also deeply rooted in the consensus of openness. Nanjing has a complete upstream and downstream industrial chain. An “idea” can be quickly turned into reality in Nanjing.
BSH Home Appliance Electromagnetic Compatibility Laboratory.
The washing machine is a commonly used household appliance. But you may not know that manufacturing a washing machine requires the application of advanced technologies such as laser butt welding, factory simulation, and robot vision. And from “washing clean” to “washing well”, technologies like deep cleaning, steam wrinkle removal, and intelligent sensing drying are added… Behind a washing machine of BSH Home Appliances, research, industry, academia and application have united as one in Nanjing.
On the technical front, since 2011, BSH Home Appliances and Southeast University have carried out five rounds of strategic cooperation, jointly completing 57 innovative projects, and working together to solve product problems in fields such as aerodynamics, thermodynamics, and artificial intelligence. At the end of last year, at the 30th anniversary Innovation and Development Summit of BSH China, college students from Nanjing University of Science and Technology collaborated with the internal R&D team of BSH Home Appliances to incubate innovative ideas and won the championship in one fell swoop.
On the application side, enterprises in Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone have conducted demand matching and intention communication with potential cooperative enterprises regarding scene applications, providing an ideal “experimental field” for innovation and facilitating the transformation of high-quality R&D achievements into market benefits.
By the end of 2024, four projects have reached cooperation intentions. On the surface, it seems that the enterprises have reaped the benefits, but looking deeper, this is a “double sweetness” for both the enterprises and the cities.
Nowadays, the “newness” in the phrase “Investing in Nanjing is investing in the future” continues to rise.
The Nanjing Engineering Research and Development Center of Ford Motor Company has gradually developed from a purchasing office into a global product development center.
The R&D center of Brembo Group in China, which designs and produces high-performance braking systems and components for top automotive, motorcycle and commercial vehicle manufacturers, will be relocated to Nanjing.
The Hella Electronics R&D and Industrialization Project, invested and established by the German Hella Company, has been signed and settled in Nanjing. It will build an automotive electronics R&D center including the BMS system and gradually carry out production and manufacturing business based on the R&D achievements…
Capital flows are the “thermometer” of economic vitality and the “barometer” of economic confidence. The shift from “focusing on production” to “focusing on research and development” reflects Nanjing’s perseverance in taking the path of scientific and technological innovation and its determination to expand high-level opening up to the outside world. Nowadays, an increasing number of foreign-funded enterprises are setting up their research and development centers in Nanjing and “bringing more technologies from China to the world”.
Innovation and unity are not hindered by mountains and seas. It’s a great pleasure to meet “Ning”. One story after another of mutual pursuit is yet to be completed.
Expert Opinion
Nanjing is becoming a global source of innovation for multinational enterprises
The strategic shift of multinational enterprises from “building factories” to “conducting research and development” marks that Nanjing’s position in the global value chain is undergoing a leap from a “production hub” to an “intellectual hub”. The settlement of high-level projects represented by the global R&D center of BSH and the only IT R&D center of BMW China is not only the result of the upgrading of Nanjing’s industrial ecosystem, but also will reshape its logic for participating in international competition. There are multiple factors behind this: First, the “magnetic pole effect” between talents and the scientific and technological innovation ecosystem; Second, the industrial foundation has been upgraded from “scale clusters” to “ecological communities”. Third, the business environment has advanced from “policy preferences” to “institutional innovation”.
Therefore, in the next step, Nanjing should seize the opportunity and magnify its advantages. The first is to remove the obstacles in the integration of research and production to prevent innovation silos. Centering on the established R&D centers, efforts should be made to extend, supplement and strengthen the industrial chain, attract more related enterprises to gather, form an innovation industrial cluster, leverage the advantages of scale and collaborative innovation, and enhance Nanjing’s position in the global innovation landscape. The second is to explore the governance model of the “Open Innovation Community”. Establish a “Cross-border R&D Innovation Alliance” to attract more enterprises to join by opening up scenarios. For instance, open up public scenarios such as smart cities and low-carbon buildings, and allow foreign-funded R&D centers to participate in the design of solutions to achieve a flywheel effect of technological symbiosis and business win-win.
The “mutual pursuit” between cities and enterprises
In the past, foreign-funded enterprises setting up factories in China mainly focused on land, labor costs and the vast market opportunities. Nowadays, with China’s rise in new productivity fields such as artificial intelligence, new-generation information technology, the Internet, and green energy, foreign investment in China is more like “joining a Chinese fitness club” – its core demands have shifted to zero-distance perception of cutting-edge innovative applications, gathering top industry talents, honing innovation capabilities through competition and cooperation with Chinese counterparts, and even building “in China, A new business model of “serving the world”.
Against this backdrop of transformation, a “mutual pursuit” has been achieved. Nanjing, with its remarkable advantages in talent, education, science and technology, environment and internationalization, is highly suitable for the site selection requirements of foreign-funded research and development centers. Meanwhile, the city’s shift from focusing on attracting foreign investment in manufacturing to promoting higher-level opening up, supporting diversified foreign investment utilization and international cooperation, especially encouraging foreign investment to set up research and development centers and other functional institutions in Nanjing, can also help Nanjing better activate production-oriented service industries represented by research and development, and empower the high-quality development of the entire industrial system.
