CWT building Zhuhai's first 'all-intelligent' factories

Collective Wisdom Technology broke ground on May 16 for the city's first "all-intelligent" production lines in Zhuhai. Located in Sanzao Town of Jinwan District, one plant would produce unmanned aerial systems, and the other manufacture amphibious vessels for Singapore and driverless cars for Estonia distributors.

Three hectares (7.4 acres) of infrastructure are to be completed before the end of this year. CWT wants the manufacturing shops to produce 200 self-developed Spider 103 unmanned aerial systems and 800 driverless automobiles annually.

"This kind of intelligent integrated factory is the first one in Jinwan District and even the whole city," according to the Jinwan Science, Technology, Industry, Trade & Information Technology Bureau.

Spider 103 UAS [Photo courtesy collective-wisdom-technology.com]

CWT, a Sino-Italian JV between Blacklight Aircraft and GHT Helicopter, was registered in Zhuhai in February 2016. It specializes in research, development, production, and sales of heavy-class unmanned control systems with focuses on unmanned aerial vehicles and amphibious boats. CWT owns 66 patented technologies, resulting in strong R&D capacity.

The popular Spider 103 UAS, for example, offers two-hour endurance, user-friendly turbo shaft engine, 7 kg of payload, maximum speed of 90 kmph (56 mph), and advanced avionics relying on intelligent high-altitude monitoring. The unmanned tri-blade coaxial helicopter has wide applications in search and rescue, disaster relief, and border monitoring. Popular during Singapore Airshow 2018, the Spider proved especially interesting to Southeast Asian businesses.

Technimetrics, a Singaporean distributor for world-leading technology and components manufacturers, is one of the investors eying the company. It seeks production of 200 amphibious boats annually. A company from Estonia is also confident in CWT's innovative capacity; it's looking at 800 all-terrain driverless cars each year.

The projects, if completed, would generate more than 300 million yuan ($47.1 million) in annual output value, and the factory, set within Zhuhai's favorable business environment, is likely to be the manufacturing base, an executive noted.