On Dec. 7, the annual Siemens Day was held in Tsinghua’s Main Building. Tsinghua Vice President Wang Xiqin, Siemens Executive Vice President Norbert Gaus, Siemens President for College Cooperation Natascha Eckert, and over 100 representatives from the Siemens China Research Institute, business groups and Tsinghua University participated in the activity. Vice President Wang Xiqin and Dr. Norbert Gaus gave opening speeches at the start of the event.
Wang Xiqin spoke highly of the Center of Knowledge Interchange (CKI), maintaining that as Tsinghua’s window towards Europe, especially Germany, the CKI played an important role in East-West communication and in industry-university-research communication. The year 2017 being the tenth year since Tsinghua University and Siemens signed their overall cooperative framework agreement, he expressed his gratitude to Siemens for its long-term support, and hoped that the work of the CKI could be expanded and deepened to attract participation of more enterprises and universities. He added that the signing of the latest phase of the cooperation agreement, as well as the establishment of Tsinghua University (Department of Mechanical Engineering) – Siemens Joint Center for Advanced Robot (JCAR), were worthy of celebration and expressed his wish that the two sides would stride towards an even brighter future through their cooperation.
Dr. Norbert Gaus, Executive Vice President of Siemens, introduced the company’s development strategy for technological products in China, mentioning in particular its strategy in digitalization, automation and mechanization, noting the resonant effect of Tsinghua University’s technological development. After ten years of cooperation, Tsinghua University has become one of Siemens’ most important partners in the world. In 2017, the total amount of technological cooperation reached a new high, leading that among Siemens’ global college partners, and taking up 66% of the total technological cooperation between Siemens and all its Chinese university partners. Since 2006, the two sides have carried out over 190 joint research projects, fully exploiting their advantages in talent cultivation and technological innovation, while further deepening and improving their cooperation. In 2017, Siemens invested an additional 2 million Euros to build an open innovative platform for advanced robotics with Tsinghua University, aiming to create a famous innovative brand, to cultivate global talent, to build an open innovative eco-system and to expand the global open innovative network in the field of advanced robotics.
As part of the Siemens Day events Ma Jun, Director of the Overseas R&D Management Office, Tsinghua’s Office of Scientific R&D, and Dr. Natascha Eckert, President for College Cooperation for Siemens, signed the phase-III five-year Tsinghua-Siemens framework agreement on each side’s behalf. The signing of the agreement was witnessed by Tsinghua Vice President Wang Xiqin, Director of Office of Scientific R&D Zhou Yu, Prof. Li Zheng, Prof. Lin Feng, Dr. Norbert Gaus, Siemens’ Executive Vice President, Dr. Zhu Xiaoxun, Director of the Siemens China Research Institute, Dr. Stefan Niessen, leader of Siemens’ R&D in the field of energy systems, and Dr. Ludger Meyer, leader of Siemens’ R&D in mechanical and electrical engineering.
Present at the inauguration of the Tsinghua University (Department of Mechanical Engineering) – Siemens Joint Center for Advanced Robotics (JCAR) were Prof. Liu Xinjun, Director of the center, Prof. Lin Feng from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Wang Yifan, representative of Siemens’ robotics division, and Thomas Schott, guest professor of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and former Vice President at Siemens for automated products and systems. Prof. Thomas Schott, Prof. Li Keqiang, Dr. Stefan Niessen and Prof. Liu Pei each gave keynote speeches on digitalized enterprises, unpiloted driving, energy system design and operation, and energetic engineering systems and its application in China, respectively.
At noon, the management committee meeting of the Tsinghua University (Department of Mechanical Engineering) – Siemens Joint Center for Advanced Robotics was held, where the center’s development direction and management system were discussed. In the afternoon, Tsinghua teachers and students together with researchers from Siemens, participated in four featured seminars covering the topics of advanced robotics, internet city solutions, energy internet, and the internet of things and artificial intelligence, in which they presented their research progress and discussed cooperative opportunities with each other. Dr. Eckert and Dr. Niessen spoke highly of the research capacity of academic staff at Tsinghua University and of the international level of its doctoral students, and both expressed a positive view on prospects for further future cooperation between Tsinghua and Siemens.
[update:2017-12]
