
The signing ceremony of the agreement to jointly establish the AI + High-Protein Corn for Feed Grain-Saving Engineering Research Institute. [Photo/news.hzau.edu.cn]
On Nov 12, Huazhong Agricultural University (HZAU) President Yan Jianbing led a delegation to Guangxi Yangxiang Group to deepen university-industry cooperation and integrate scientific research with industrial production. The parties focused on areas like using AI for healthy and efficient pig farming and future food processing, as part of exploring new pathways for digital and intelligent development.
A highlight of the visit was the signing of an agreement to jointly establish the AI + High-Protein Corn for Feed Grain-Saving Engineering Research Institute.
President Yan praised Yangxiang Group's commitment to innovation and its strategy of "technology changing the pig farming industry". He stressed that successful university-industry collaboration must be driven by innovation to achieve high-quality development through three pillars.
Core Technology Innovation: Using frontier technologies like AI to empower traditional agriculture, achieving cost reduction and efficiency gains, and creating new industrial ecosystems.
Innovative Organizational Models: Building a deeply integrated R&D, production, and application paradigm characterized by shared goals and complementary advantages.
Refined Evaluation Mechanisms: Establishing a flexible, long-term system guided by industrial value and contributions towards impactful outcomes.
Shi Liang, chairman of Yangxiang Group, expressed his gratitude for HZAU's long-term support in technology and talent development, which has bolstered their technical expertise over sixteen years. He stated that as the Group enters a new phase of digital development, building a "farm-to-table" new quality productivity system, continued technological and human capital support from HZAU is vital.
Yangxiang Group pledged to support expert teams focusing on precision nutrition, gene breeding, AI-enhanced efficient farming, and smart food development, which is pushing the collaboration toward higher levels of production-research synergy.