Chen Ping (right), the director of the management committee of Optics Valley of China, signs 16 projects worth about 40 billion yuan ($5.66 billion) with enterprises on April 8. [Photo/WeChat account of Optics Valley of China]

East Lake High-tech Development Zone -- also known as Optics Valley of China -- in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, signed 16 projects worth about 40 billion yuan ($5.66 billion) recently.

It signed them with companies at a side event of an online signing activity held by the city on April 8 -- the first day after Wuhan lifted outbound travel restrictions after 76 days of quarantine due to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

Officials said this was the first online investment promotion activity held in Wuhan in 2020. During the activity, representatives from the city and all districts signed project contracts with enterprises by video link.

As one of the venues involved, Optics Valley also held a cloud signing ceremony simultaneously.

At the signing ceremony, Chen Ping -- the director of the management committee of the zone -- signed off on the 16 projects with enterprises, including foreign investment of about $1.1 billion.

The projects cover many fields including biomedical R & D and manufacturing, the headquarters economy, smart transportation, smart logistics, the information applications innovation industry, internet education, internet medical treatment and finance.

Among the projects is an R & D base for biomedical group MGI project involving construction of an intelligent production base for gene sequencers. It will also involve construction of a production base for diagnostic reagents and chips for gene sequencers -- as well as construction of a high-end intelligent equipment research center for carrying out research and development of core key technologies for high-end equipment such as artificial intelligence equipment, mass spectrometers, imaging and wearable devices.

A foreign-funded project involves the new Dingkang large-scale biomedical research and development and commercial customized plant.

Plans are to build a large-scale biomedical research and development and commercial production base with a total fermentation capacity of more than 140,000 liters and a large number of disposable bioreactors and single fermentation stainless steel tanks.

Elsewhere, there is the second phase of Xiaomi's Wuhan headquarters. Plans are to establish many businesses at Optics Valley, such as the Xiaomi artificial intelligence and cloud platform, a mobile internet of things, as well as to attract Xiaomi ecological chain enterprises.

Datang and Nio intelligent transportation and vehicle networking projects are jointly being constructed at the zone.

They are committed to promoting the research, development and industrialization of 5G and automatic driving intelligent transportation technology.

In the early stage, plans are to carry out core technology research and development, explore and implement vehicle road coordination and automatic driving operation projects in Wuhan.

In the later stage, plans are to promote the industrialization of intelligent transportation and vehicle networking-related technologies in a market-oriented way.

Yet another endeavor is the TUS Cloud Control smart car "human, vehicle, road, cloud" collaborative industrial infrastructure central China headquarters and innovation center.

This project plans to set up a central China regional headquarters in Optics Valley -- to undertake functions of operations and technical support. It will set up an innovation center for smart car "human, vehicle, road, cloud" collaboration core technology research and development and industrialization. The project will rely on technologies such as 5G communications, artificial intelligence and high-precision maps to achieve "human, vehicle, road, and cloud" collaboration and build an urban smart transportation system.

Meanwhile, China GreatWall Technology Group signed to work with Wuhan Zhongyuan Electronics and plans to build China GreatWall (Wuhan) Information Technology Innovation Industry Base and Innovation Center.

The companies said they will build the leading terminal industry base for information technology innovation in China. This will mainly be for research and development and production of reliable localized information technology innovation terminals.

At the same time, a project is planned for an LOONGSON R&D and Operations Center. It will create a regional chip sales and support service team, an LOONGSON CPU applications system and a software adaptation innovation platform, as well as a LOONGSON open source community platform and a university cooperation platform.