New Year Outlook: New Capabilities, New Values, and New Models: ADI’s New Beginning

Latest update time：2021-12-30

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Zhao Chuanyu

Vice President of Sales, ADI China

Looking back at 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic is still like an out-of-control gray rhino, rampaging in many corners of the world and continuing to have an impact on the macro-economy, industry structure, and corporate operations. Fortunately, this "gray rhino" has hit a wall in China - due to effective control of the epidemic, China, as the world's second largest economy, is still maintaining steady growth, which has also injected more confidence into the recovery of global economic growth.

The 2021 China CEO Outlook shows that from China to the world, entrepreneurs and managers have more confidence in the future than before the epidemic, and Chinese CEOs pay more attention to the three major areas of innovation, risk management, and corporate social responsibility when looking forward to 2021. If innovation and corporate social responsibility are more internally driven, then risk management comes more from the outside. The risks in the eyes of CEOs include the complex and changing international situation, climate change, and supply chain risks. As a world-leading analog semiconductor technology manufacturer, ADI's value lies in helping customers adapt to changes, integrate into changes, and constantly breed new vitality and motivation from changes.

The singularity moment when technology will give rise to an explosion of applications is coming soon

Thanks to technological progress - with the large-scale application brought by 5G, artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing, it has reached the singularity moment of eruption. The conditions for embracing change and technology-driven are ripe. The integration and mutual penetration of industries have brought about an increase in the demand of vertical industry customers. This integration of technology and industry is like a snowball. The evolution of technology is a long slope, the industry is very wet snow, and the digital application of the industry is like the initial snowball. When it rolls down the long slope, the snowball and the potential energy it generates will become larger and larger, and the impact on the industry and society will continue to grow.

In the past 10 years, digital technology has revolutionized the consumer Internet sector and given birth to a Chinese Internet army that is on par with the world's leading technology companies. In the next 10 years, digital technology will accelerate its integration with traditional industries and economic forms, and will also bring about greater disruptive changes. The "seeds" of a series of major industrial changes, such as smart cities, smart healthcare, and intelligent manufacturing, have already broken through the ground, growing secretly, and will grow into towering trees in the next decade, forming a new ecology that we are now looking forward to and imagining.

In China, under the new development pattern of "dual circulation", high-quality development has become a common demand, and digitalization has achieved rapid development because it is an important "fulcrum" that can leverage high-quality development - the high-profile "new infrastructure" and the volume advantage brought by the unified and huge market. On the other hand, this year's climate war related to the sustainable development of all mankind has opened a new curtain with the convening of COP26. Humanity has accelerated into the era of carbon neutrality, and China has also entered a stage of fully promoting the realization of the "dual carbon" goal. Green transformation and digital transformation complement and promote each other. For example, digital technology is playing a catalytic and boosting role in the development of new energy. All of this shows that China's development in the next 10 years will rely more on the drive of digital power.

New capabilities, new values, new models, moving towards the digital future

ADI has been deeply involved in the field of analog semiconductors for many years, providing underlying technical support for the construction of "digital buildings" in various industries, driving digital power, and exerting influence on environmental, economic, and social issues closely related to human development. Achieving "technology for good" is ADI's unchanging commitment. But looking forward to the new year, we have also changed. Now ADI has new capabilities and opened up new models, which bring new value to the industry.

The new capabilities come from the acquisition of Maxim. In August 2021, we officially acquired Maxim and completed the "merger" of the two companies. We both have similar DNA, such as people-oriented, technology for good, and pursuit of leadership; our technologies are complementary, agile and adaptable, and can better adapt to market changes. With the deep integration of the two companies, we will work together to find ways to better adapt to the development of the times and serve our customers, so that our customers can focus on business growth.

Thanks to the power of integration, we will have the ability to provide more complete hardware, software and system solutions. This also lays the foundation for ADI to create new value, which is not single but multi-dimensional. We will start and exert our strength from three levels: hardware innovation, system innovation, and ecological innovation. While continuously improving the hardware innovation capabilities, we will surpass the thinking of "parts" manufacturers and help customers improve the overall performance of the overall product or system from the perspective of system innovation. For example, the battery management system (BMS) provided by ADI for electric vehicles is a successful practice from product to system innovation. From the perspective of hardware innovation, ADI proposed BMS, which can provide electric vehicles with accurate power measurement and battery life management, thereby improving the driving range; then, from the perspective of "designing a car", we proposed wireless BMS, eliminating the wiring complexity and volume weight increase caused by cables, helping automotive OEM manufacturers to gain new value from now on. But this is not the end of BMS innovation. On the contrary, ADI continues to take innovation to a higher level. From the perspective of industrial ecology, we have insight into the potential value of wireless BMS in promoting the development of the second-hand electric vehicle industry. It can record battery data from the formation and storage of the battery, the working conditions of the battery during driving, and the evaluation of the residual value of the battery during the recycling of the electric vehicle. It can value the second-hand electric vehicle and solve the major problems of recycling and valuation faced by the electric vehicle industry. At the same time, it also promotes the cascade utilization of batteries and promotes the sustainable development of the industry. On this basis, ADI and the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People's Association jointly initiated the establishment of the "Battery Full Life Cycle Joint Innovation Center", which is committed to investigating and solving key problems in the field of new energy vehicle batteries, and attracting leading enterprises in the industrial chain to join in forming a cross-industry, cross-disciplinary, and cross-departmental industrial research platform to create ecological innovation.

It can be said that ADI’s innovation in BMS is a new “paradigm” that redefines the depth and breadth of innovation. It will also be a “lighthouse” leading digital innovation ideas and practices, helping us and our customers to continuously discover “new worlds” under the guidance of this idea.

At the same time, we actively explore new models of localized operations. Last year, ADI officially registered Analog Devices Investment Co., Ltd. in China, which is an upgrade of ADI's China operations headquarters. ADI China Products Division was specially established. We deployed core R&D forces to China to define and develop products for the local market. From then on, ADI China has integrated demand research, product definition, R&D, marketing and operations, and gradually improved the local supply chain and production cooperation system. This operation model that places superior technical strengths locally better interprets the long-term commitment of "in China, for China".

The next decade will be a decade of digitalization moving into the "deep sea area", and it will also be a "deep sea voyage" for ADI to create new value with new capabilities and new models. We are like the power system that supports ocean-going giants, constantly driving the industrial giants forward. Here, we, our customers, partners, etc. will not only witness the blue sky, but also open up new horizons, discover new fertile ground, and achieve new careers.

This is the decade-long roadmap that ADI will unfold in 2022.

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