Haier Wins Six Shandong Science and Technology Awards, Most in Industry; Plans RMB 100 Billion R&D Investment
At the 2025 Shandong Science and Technology Awards, Haier Group won six projects, the most of any company, including four first prizes and two second prizes. The winning work spans artificial intelligence, smart home and big health, with technologies such as heat-pump defrosting, automated biological culture, cloud-edge-end collaboration and 3D CAD. Haier said it will invest at least RMB 100 billion in R&D over the next five years, focusing on AI, chips and IoT security.
On August 6, 2026, the Shandong Science and Technology Conference was held in Jinan, where the 2025 Shandong Science and Technology Awards were announced. Haier Group won six projects, including four first prizes and two second prizes, concentrated in artificial intelligence, smart home and big health.
The project "Heat Pump Heating Positive Cycle Heat Flow Micro-Frost Removal Integrated Technology and Industrialization", led by Haier Air Conditioning, won a first prize in the Shandong Science and Technology Progress Award. The technology addresses frequent frosting and defrosting of heat pump air conditioners in low-temperature, high-humidity environments. It is the first to use positive-cycle heat flow micro-frost removal, extending heating duration to more than 25 hours, keeping indoor temperature fluctuation as low as 0.5 degrees Celsius, and saving 8.3% energy.
The project "Key Technology Development and Industrialization of Intensive Bio-Automated Culture Equipment", led by Haier Biomedical, also won a first prize. It pioneered an MPC multi-objective PID temperature control strategy and temperature-humidity decoupling control, applied full-process SOP processes and AI cell recognition, achieving temperature uniformity of plus/minus 0.15 degrees Celsius and a 150% improvement in culture efficiency. The products have served more than 400 institutions globally and achieved domestic substitution.
The project "Key Technology and Application of Cloud-Edge-End Intelligent Collaboration and Elastic Computing for Complex Industrial Scenarios", in which Haier Washing Appliances participated, was awarded a first prize. The technology improved resource utilization by 24% and comprehensive data processing efficiency by 47.6%. The project "Development and Application of a 3D Geometric Modeling Engine and Series of 3D CAD Platforms", in which Haier Intelligent Technology R&D participated, also won a first prize, filling the gap in domestic CAD systems for key industries such as railways and petrochemicals.
Two projects led by Haier Washing Machine, a shoe washing machine and a clothes dryer, won second prizes in the Shandong Science and Technology Progress Award. The shoe washing machine filled a category gap, while the clothes dryer made progress in energy saving.
Haier said it has laid out four levels: basic infrastructure, AI ecosystem, vertical domain models and business scenarios, and applies AI to smart home, big health and digital economy. Among the winning projects, AI cell recognition, cloud-edge-end intelligent collaboration and AI temperature control strategies played supporting roles. Haier plans cumulative R&D investment of no less than RMB 100 billion over the next five years, focusing on basic technology areas such as artificial intelligence, chips and IoT security.
Haier operates 10 major R&D centers and 71 research institutes globally, forming a "10+N" collaborative R&D system. Its online HOPE innovation ecosystem platform connects more than 250,000 technical experts and aggregates more than 1 million R&D resources. To date, Haier has won 18 National Science and Technology Progress Awards and has led or participated in more than 140 international standards and more than 1,100 national and industry standards.