NANJING, July 24 (Xinhua) — Placing on security goggles, a customer on the exhibition corridor of Suzhou Maxphotonics Know-how Co., Ltd. grips a welding gun weighing simply 300 grams, lighter than a bottle of water, and in underneath a minute, a seamless, hairline-thin weld takes form throughout a steel plate.
That is no sci-fi film set, however a frequent scene at this firm in east China’s Jiangsu Province.
The “Hongtong K1M” welding gun, launched simply this June, options an industry-first built-in wire-feeding mechanism constructed immediately into the gun physique, eliminating the necessity for welders to always flip round and attain for welding wire like dancers in a tango.
The gun’s 360-degree rotating hover button takes ergonomics to the following degree: whether or not bending, leaning sideways or welding overhead, fingers discover the button from any angle, really placing the welder accountable for the gadget.
“Bizarre individuals can grasp the fundamentals with easy coaching. New operators can attain the talent degree of veteran welders after a brief course,” mentioned Dang Jiantang, deputy common supervisor of Maxphotonics, with evident delight.
In Dang’s view, laser welding is conducting one thing revolutionary, reworking welding from a conventional craft requiring “apprenticeship underneath a grasp for 3 years” into an accessible, democratized instrument.
Dang joined Maxphotonics in 2013 and has watched the corporate develop from round 40 to 50 workers originally to its present workforce of over 1,900.
“Once we first settled right here, income was simply 2 to three million yuan (about 294,525 to 441,787 U.S. {dollars}). Final yr we hit 1.5 billion yuan, and this yr we’re on observe to succeed in 1.65 billion,” he revealed.
These numbers translate into actual {industry} management: Maxphotonics now ranks second globally and first domestically within the fiber laser market, with merchandise exported to over 60 nations and areas.
As Yang Jinlong, R&D director at Maxphotonics, put it: “China accounts for 56 % of the worldwide laser market, and Maxphotonics alone holds a 27.5-percent share of the home market.”
This “hidden champion” boasts a formidable patent portfolio, that includes over 1,000 patent purposes and greater than 600 granted patents, masking the whole industrial chain from optical fibers and pump sources to high-power management know-how, reaching full autonomy throughout the board. Its most celebrated breakthrough is the world’s first 160kW ultra-high-power fiber laser, which slices by means of thick metal plates with ease and has set a brand new {industry} benchmark.
Intriguingly, Maxphotonics’ ambitions lengthen far past merely “exporting merchandise.” Dang defined that the corporate has established its European headquarters in Gilching in Bavaria, Germany, and its U.S. headquarters in Boston. Wholly-owned subsidiaries function in Italy, Trkiye, Australia, Japan and the Republic of Korea, with department workplaces in India, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and Thailand.
That is excess of tools gross sales. Fairly, it quantities to the weaving of a world laser service community. Native gross sales, native after-sales help and native coaching mix to compress the service radius of “Made in China” proper to clients’ doorsteps.
A half-hour drive from Maxphotonics lies the Suzhou Excessive-Tech Zone and the headquarters of Suzhou Everbright Photonics Co., Ltd., the place the high-power semiconductor laser chips that function the beating “coronary heart” of Maxphotonics’ lasers are manufactured.
If Maxphotonics’ mild is “seen sharpness,” Everbright’s mild is hidden inside chips measured in millimeters. A chip smaller than a fingernail should move by means of epitaxy, lithography, coating, packaging and testing, with every step tolerating not even the slightest deviation.
“When the undertaking began, abroad producers saved core beam-combining algorithms and coating processes strictly confidential. We needed to construct our experimental platform from scratch,” recalled Wang Jun, R&D director at Everbright, reflecting on these grueling days in pursuit of technical breakthroughs.
In Could this yr, Everbright’s “kilowatt-class blue-band active-control spectral beam combining know-how” received China’s High 10 Optical Business Know-how Breakthrough Award, breaking Western corporations’ unique monopoly in blue high-power processing. Chinese language options are actually accessible for high-end purposes akin to new power automobile battery welding and highly-reflective steel 3D printing.
At present, Everbright is a far cry from its early startup days. It operates China’s solely 6-inch gallium arsenide laser chip manufacturing line, ranks first in home market share for high-power semiconductor laser chips, and noticed income attain 477 million yuan in 2025, surging 75.09 % yr on yr.
Notably, essentially the most exceptional facet is not the energy of any single firm, however how Suzhou has packed a complete photonics {industry} chain into single buildings. At No. 56 Lijiang Highway, the place Everbright relies, 12 upstream and downstream enterprises occupy one constructing.
Throughout the Suzhou Excessive-Tech Zone alone, over 350 industry-related enterprises have clustered, together with eight listed corporations and 35 specialised “little large” enterprises, with whole output worth exceeding 85 billion yuan. Three dominant industrial chains, specifically lasers, optical communications and clever optical sensing, are advancing in tandem.
