ADI sees China a lab for technological progress

China, the world's second-largest economy, is viewed as "a lab for ADI's technological and business innovation", said a senior executive of the global semiconductor maker.

"We love the speed of China and the embracing of new technology," said Anelise Sacks, ADI's executive vice-president and chief customer officer, at the China EV100 Forum held earlier this month in Beijing.

In the automotive industry, ADI has been working with many leading Chinese carmakers and suppliers, cooperating with "some of them at co-creation level", she said.

"With those, we are able to bring cutting-edge innovations to the market earlier. Importantly, these innovations will not just remain in China, but will be exported to the world," said Sacks.

ADI has been deepening its localization to be part of China's ecosystem. The company has had operations in China for decades.

Sacks said she met with the company's founder Ray Stata prior to her travel to Beijing, and the 88-year-old told her proudly that his first trip to China was in 1978, when he got an enormous order for an oil drilling system.

"Our Chinese customers are great partners helping drive strong growth today while co-creating the innovations of tomorrow," she said.

In the automotive industry, ADI offers a range of products for the smart new energy vehicle industry.

One example is the battery management system, which is essential to improve vehicle performance, charging experience and to extend battery lifetimes.

ADI is the leader in this BMS segment, with 16 of the top 20 NEV makers as its customers.

It has been working on data transport technologies that have proven especially crucial to smart cars, ranging from its Gigabit Multimedia Serial Link, which is used for video distribution in cars, to the 10 Megabit Ethernet solution.

Edward Chen, director of automotive marketing at ADI China, said the company has been deepening its local efforts, which outside of operations involve product definition, design and production.

"We would like to become part of China's ecosystem and get deeply involved in cooperation," he said.

"When we are close to the market, we can respond quickly to our customers' innovative demands and roll out our products," said Chen.

He said Chinese customers, because of the market's fast development, require their demands to be met in a shorter period of time than in many overseas markets.

Localization in China helps ADI to deliver products on time and also enables it to export China-made products to other countries, as the industry in China is leading, said Chen.

"After the phase of 'In China for China', the phase 'In China for Global' is what follows in our strategy," said Chen.