Tsinghua Tongfang Co's HQ in the Haidian Science Park.

A high-tech company in Beijing's Haidian Science Park (HSP) that has been cooperating with Tsinghua (Qinghua) University, one of China's top schools, is quickly becoming a leader in the information technology industry and related fields.

The Tsinghua Tongfang Company is now, in fact, a brand name and holds nearly 2,000 patents and property rights. By 2010, it had 24.8 billion yuan ($3.88 billion) in assets and sales of more than 18 billion yuan.

In November 2008, the company was selected as one of the world's top 500 brands.

Its name comes from a famous sentence in the Book of Rites - one of the five Confucian classics - referring to a place where those with similar ambitions and social sense gather.

Also, there is a Tong Fang department on the Tsinghua campus, in one of the oldest buildings, which is used for the annual Confucius memorial ceremony every Aug 27.

These days, Tongfang is making full use of its close relations with the university to use its intellectual resources to back the company's research and development ambitions.

It has collaborated with Tsinghua to establish two other companies: Tongfang Nuctech Co and Tongfang Microelectronic.

Nuctech has become one of the world's largest security inspection product manufacturers and security solutions supplier, with a 70-percent market share globally, according to the company.

Meanwhile, Chinese government has approved Tongfang Micro-electronics as a major specialized chip supplier for its second generation identity cards. The company has sold over 800 million of the chips.

The government has said that, for the beginning of China's 12th Five-Year-Plan, this year, it will develop seven strategic emerging industries, all of which Tongfang has connections with.

In the energy-saving, environmental-protection sector, Tongfang's methods for dealing with waste water, gas, and coal ash, and recycling energy are among the world's most advanced.

Its heating-network technology covers half of the China market and it is working on combining intelligent computer controls with "green lighting" to cut energy use and cost.

The company's executives have said they have enough preparation in emerging fields such as waste incineration and "are just waiting for the proper policy".

Tongfang was also one of the first Chinese companies to embrace "the Internet of things" concept - a network of Internet-enabled objects and the web servers that interact with them. The Internet of Things is driven by technology such as RFID (radio frequency identification), sensors, and smart phones.

In other major industrial segments, such as the military or satellite communications, Tongfang has become a world leader.

It is also involved in the new energy sector and new energy vehicles and, during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, cooperated with CNPC, China's largest oil and gas supplier, in building refueling stations for the event's hydrogen vehicles.

The company has explained that its overall development is closely related to the HSP and its support through favorable tax and other policies.

In addition, HSP has helped a lot by introducing intellectuals and promoting the company's image.

It said that HSP's innovative ideas accord with Tongfang's values in "technology, innovation and trust," which have helped the company grow bigger and stronger.

(China Daily 09/15/2011 page18)