Foxconn, the global “OEM empire”, manufactures more than 40% of the world’s consumer electronics products, and its OEM brands include Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Nokia, Motorola, etc.
BGI, the world’s largest genomics R&D institution, is one of the top 50 “World’s Most Innovative Technology Companies in 2013” by MIT “Technology Entrepreneurship” magazine, and the first in the 2015 “Nature” global industrial organization cooperation ranking, which gave birth to Chinese gene sequencing. industry.
One is the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, and the other is a leader in the high-tech field. The two companies seem to be inseparable. And this time, they really hit it off.
On March 1, Foxconn President Terry Gou revealed to the media that Foxconn has reached a strategic cooperation with BGI. For a while, everyone was confused. What kind of cooperation will BGI and Foxconn have? Then Wang Jian, chairman of BGI, answered everyone’s questions: Several BGI instruments and products will be handed over to Foxconn for mass production.
This makes people understand a lot more: After building an unknown number of iPhones, Foxconn is going to build a gene sequencer !
Guo Taiming and Wang Jian had known each other earlier. Based on their common concern for life and health, both of them held positions in the Disabled Persons’ Association. Half a month ago, Terry Gou led a delegation from Foxconn Technology Group to visit BGI. Wang Jian took Guo Taiming to visit the Shenzhen National Gene Bank, and discussed the storage of the whole life cycle, how to use life science and technology to achieve 100-year-old health, and use gene science and technology to benefit mankind. On the one hand, Wang Jian was a tour guide, and on the other hand, he did not forget to tease Guo Taiming’s senile plaques: “I insist on more scientific, healthier and more accurate eating, drinking and playing, and senile plaques have also been greatly improved.”
I sent Guo Taiming’s own photographic work on Mount Everest, and the two talked while walking, from eating, drinking and having fun to charity, and to precision health. Wang Jian took Guo Taiming’s hand: We have to get rid of this birth defect, and we have to get rid of the tumor, so brother, you have to support me, let’s join hands with the forces of all walks of life in the world to get rid of gene-related diseases, and by the way, we also need to get rid of the spots. also removed.
Although he was ridiculed for age spots along the way and felt the charm of genetic technology, Guo Taiming decided to let Foxconn create something at the forefront of technology.
BGI: Free up hands for R&D
The named OEM is the BGISEQ-50 small desktop gene sequencer that BGI has just passed the production license at the end of last year. This is another masterpiece of BGI following the release of the first desktop high-throughput sequencing system BGISEQ-500 on October 24, 2015. BGISEQ-50 is small in size and easy to place. It not only fully supports basic sequencing applications in clinical and scientific research fields, but also has a wide range of applications, breaking through space constraints, and can operate normally even in low-pressure environments at high altitudes. It is suitable for non-invasive Clinical applications such as prenatal screening, preimplantation embryo chromosome screening, chromosomal abnormality detection, rapid detection of unknown pathogens, and scientific research fields such as RNA expression profiling.
“This instrument will be produced by Foxconn, and we need at least 100,000 units.” Wang Jian said: ” With this gene sequencer, everyone can easily know their genes in the future, and the market size will not be smaller than that of mobile phones. . ”
Illumina is BGI’s main competitor in the upstream market. In recent years, Illumina has been operating at a pace of one sequencer per year. With the newly launched NovaSeq series this year, Illumina’s position in the global market has taken another step, and the stock price has also risen. BGI is facing a lot of pressure in the upstream market.
In the field of science and technology, innovation ability can be said to be the vitality of an enterprise, and it is also an embarrassing word for many Chinese enterprises. China has no shortage of manufacturing capabilities, and Foxconn has no shortage. By handing over the equipment that has formed intellectual property rights to a reliable OEM, you can free up your hands to spend more time and energy on research and development, which is obviously much wiser than your own production. With such a large number of instruments, is there a more partner than Foxconn?
Foxconn: Looking for partners and making the strongest voice for transformation
Foxconn has the title of “World Foundry”. On the surface, it seems to be very beautiful, but it has always been at the bottom of the production chain, and workers rarely participate in upstream research and development. As a foundry company, Foxconn can focus on the production under orders, but cannot share the value of the brand, and the profit margin is extremely low. With China’s development, labor costs continue to rise, and China’s costs increase, it will be difficult to achieve the dominance of a century-old enterprise in the long run.
Since 2014, Foxconn has been seeking transformation. At the beginning, Guo Taiming turned his attention to e-commerce. After the ambitious launch of “Flying Tiger Tesco”, the final project almost failed due to many reasons such as low investment, infighting among employees, and ambiguous positioning. Despite the lingering fears, the company still conducted several e-commerce tests after the fall of Feihu. However, due to the fierce competition environment, Foxconn’s e-commerce road has not gone smoothly.
After hitting a wall on the e-commerce road one after another, Guo Taiming seems to understand that the company does not have the e-commerce gene, and it is still suitable to take the “industrial route”. After spending all the money to acquire Sharp, and then set his sights on Toshiba, people go to Japan to buy one For toilet lids, Terry Gou looks at the most representative high-tech companies in Japan. He participated in the Yunqi Conference, transformed the old factory into a research and development center in the style of Silicon Valley, recruited 12,000 college students as “general workers”, and invented global inventions. There are more than 4,700 rights, of which more than 80% are invention patents. Manufacturing Foxconn is transforming into innovative Foxconn step by step.
But the embarrassing thing is that the label “OEM Empire” is too firmly attached, and it is difficult to tear it off for a while. Foxconn needs to step up its publicity efforts and make a bigger voice. And the cooperation with BGI and the collision with the high-tech field will not make people re-examine Foxconn?
After acquiring Sharp, Foxconn successfully put 8K technology in its own pocket. This is another attraction of Foxconn to BGI. Wang Jian said that the strategic cooperation with Foxconn also includes the application of 8K technology in genetic research and precision medicine.
At present, the mainstream digital image definition on the market is generally 2K, while 8K increases the resolution by 16 times on the basis of the existing full HD. With such ultra-clear imaging technology, more subtle image data can be seen, and it also has application prospects in precision medicine.
“8K imaging technology” is the fundamental technology of artificial intelligence learning. “Currently, AI (artificial intelligence) cannot be widely used in the medical field, that is, lack of nuanced image data, AI cannot form deep learning.” Wang Jian explained. Looking at this, the cooperation between the two companies will not stop there. With many years of hardware manufacturing foundation and frequent acquisitions in recent years, Foxconn is running into the road of innovation. Based on hardware manufacturing capabilities and innovative technologies, Foxconn may provide strong support for BGI in the upstream market competition in the future.
In addition to handing over the instruments to Foxconn, BGI will also work with Foxconn to build a “Foxconn Technology Town” in Zengcheng, Guangzhou. In the joint description of Wang Jian and Guo Taiming, the future here is not only an IT base, but also a health base and a science and technology base.
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