by
John R. Fischer, Senior Reporter | January 17, 2022
United Imaging has spent $490 million to construct intelligent R&D, manufacturing plant
United Imaging has invested over $490 million in the construction of an intelligent R&D and manufacturing complex in Shanghai.
The modern campus will be about 420,000 square meters and will be the global R&D headquarters for the company. It will be used for technology research and development, intelligent manufacturing, international training and global branding. Its size will accommodate 8,000 to 10,000 employees, and it will also be designed by architectural design company Gensler, the designer of the Shanghai Tower.
The new campus will help the company in its design and sale of medical equipment, core components and advanced technologies, from R&D to industrialization. This includes PET/MR, PET/CT, MR, CT, DR and RT.
It is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. “With this great headway, United Imaging will largely boost its R&D and production capabilities and research abilities as a future-oriented enterprise,” said Dr. Xue Min, chairman of United Imaging Group, in a statement.
The complex will include a digital, intelligent super factory that will use IoT, big data and AI for automatic and intelligent manufacturing. These technologies will enable flexible scheduling, configuration, intelligent decision-making, automatic production and intelligent operation for manufacturing, warehousing and logistics. This will help it grow its supply capacity and increase its global production capability with a regional division of labor across the Changzhou factory, Wuhan base and U.S. production base.
The need for such a complex reflects the company’s growth in the last 10 years, from dozens of employees to thousands today. Additionally, the campus will have circular passages via connecting bridges, open and connecting office areas, and integrated with rivers and city roads to promote an eco-friendly sustainable, free and open environment and comfortable area that is easy for people to navigate.
Back in 2020, the company
opened a 91,000 square-foot assembly and shipping factory in Houston, Texas to expand its presence throughout the Americas. United Imaging said it saw Houston as a strategic choice of location that could provide “all kinds of positive attributes” for its business.
"At the Houston factory, in the short- to mid-term we will be assembling and shipping products to the entire U.S., and our facility will also operate as a global showroom for our products,” Jeffrey Bundy, CEO of United Imaging Healthcare Solutions, told HCB News at the time. “In the longer term, this facility is a strong foundation for an expanded global supply chain with jobs and manufacturing content."
The company was also rumored, in May 2021, to be
considering an initial public offering in Hong Kong that was expected to raise at least $1 billion. It was said to have hired CITIC Securities and China International at the end of the last year to prepare a possible domestic listing on China’s Nasdaq-like STAR board.
At this year’s RSNA in Chicago, the company debuted its latest product, uCT ATLAS, which is designed to maximize clinical flexibility. In addition to its 82-cm bore and quarter second rotation time, the 640-slice scanner comes with a range of AI capabilities not found on previous United Imaging scanners. This includes its uAI Vision camera, deep learning reconstruction and deep learning-based dose modulation features. It also is made up of the Z-Detector architecture and the uExceed software platform.
United Imaging Healthcare Solutions discussed plans for the first installations of its recently FDA-cleared CT system, the uCT ATLAS, which is designed to maximize clinical flexibility.
