A service platform designed to facilitate science and technology resource sharing launched in Wuxi has brought significant benefits to local sci-tech companies, bringing in 3,143 suits of large scientific instruments worth over 2 billion yuan ($288.74 million), gathering 5,380 technical projects, and offering technical consulting services to 474 enterprises.

The Wuxi Science and Technology Resource Sharing Service Platform, as it is known, launched in December 2018 and offers sharing services for major instruments, technology transfer, intellectual property, technology finance, incubation, and technology consultation, with a focus on integrated circuits, intelligent manufacturing, new materials and bio-medicine.

The platform combines the sci-tech resources of over 300 universities, research institutes, testing institutions and large research companies from Wuxi and across the nation, including over 80 local service institutes and over 120 domestic top universities and research institutes. It is dedicated to providing one-stop services for enterprises engaging in R&D and innovation and maximizing the utilization of resources.

Establishing a complete lab platform needs a minimum investment of 20 million yuan, causing difficulties for small and medium-sized enterprises in sci-tech research. The newly-launched platform highlights efficient and affordable resources as well as reduced R&D cost. A research institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which owns 50 suits of large instruments with less than 30 percent average utilization rate in the past, has made significant improvement on instrument utilization after joining the platform. Their effective operation time now exceeds four hours daily.

"Sci-tech companies used to build their own labs and invest 20-30 million yuan in instrument purchasing. Each instrument requires an administrator which costs at least 2 million yuan of operation expense annually," said a person in charge at Wuxi Debang Rubber Co, a company specializing in rubber material research.

The platform enables sci-tech companies and research institutes to gain easier access to shared instrument resources and also offers professional consultation and suggestion services, which will help cut costs and enhance efficiency of R&D.