The chairman of Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), Robin Zeng, on Wednesday said the group will beef up investments while incorporating more artificial intelligence technologies to bring Chinese products to the world.

Zeng's comments came before he attended the opening of the annual session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.

Speaking to reporters, Zeng, who heads the world's largest EV maker and is also a member of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC, said the group has so far gained a total of over 50,000 patents.

This is after the company invested a cumulative 80 billion yuan in research and development (R&D) in recent years, with over 21,000 staff engaged in independent R&D, he added.

Looking ahead, Zeng said the company will "not stop here" but will continue to invest in R&D, and apply more artificial intelligence technologies in its operations and products.

"We should invest in new materials, new chemical systems, new structural systems, as well as energy systems and a production system, as we're now talking about smart manufacturing," Zeng said.

"As a leading company in this industry, we'll always champion that open, win-win spirit, we would like to sell our products to the world.

"At the same time, we'd like to promote our standards, our technologies to other countries, to work with other companies around the world to make a greater contribution to the new energy industry development," he added.

Separately, the 58-year-old Ningde city-born businessman, who is also a permanent resident of Hong Kong, noted that the country has established a strong and resilient supply chain over the past few years, following national policies on encouraging the use of renewable energies.

"If you look at the previous five-year plans, starting from the 11th Five-Year Plan, that's when we made these sectors as a national strategy. With over 20 years of policy [support], that really gave us tremendous confidence," he said.

"And also for the people in our industry, we worked really hard to form the quite complete supply chain and ecosystems, from materials to the application of batteries, and to the recycling of the batteries."

CATL's listing in Hong Kong last year catapulted the SAR to the top of the initial public offering league table on a stand-alone exchange basis.



Edited by Thomas McAlinden