As China's high-level opening-up continues to deepen and high-quality development advances, the growth model of multinational companies in China is undergoing a transformation 鈥?placing the research, development and decision-making for some products within China, using innovations cultivated in the Chinese market to serve global markets, and delivering products and services to customers around the world.
Rebuilding Growth Logic Based on Market Shifts
Today, the demands placed on companies by the market are no longer limited to quickly responding to needs. Greater emphasis is placed on creating value tailored to real business scenarios, as well as on full-cycle, systematic delivery capabilities spanning solution design, development and validation of key processes, deployment and replication, and ongoing operations and maintenance. This changing competitive environment is pushing multinational companies to explore entirely new strategic paths and reshape their own growth logic.
Take Siemens' development in China as an example. In its early days, the company introduced mature overseas products to open up the domestic market and seize market opportunities. As the cost structure of domestic factors changed and the industrial support system became more complete, it leveraged supply chain advantages to carry out localized, large-scale production. Later, it optimized products, supply chains and organizational teams in line with domestic policy direction and actual customer needs to create solutions suited to the Chinese market. At the current stage, it is fully leveraging China's rich application scenarios, abundant reserve of engineering talent and complete industrial ecosystem to place the definition, research and development, and decision-making for some products in China, incubating innovative products suited to the local market and bringing these innovations to global markets.
Xiao Song, President of Siemens China, said Siemens combines the technology and quality it has accumulated over a century with what the Chinese market demands 鈥?precision in accurately understanding customer needs and speed in responding quickly to the market 鈥?and then, relying on the innovation and execution that localized decision-making brings, explores new strategic development paths suited to the Chinese market.
Deeply Cultivating the Chinese Market Based on Local Needs
Siemens has launched more than 40 industrial automation innovation products in China that were researched, developed, produced and deployed based on the needs of the Chinese market, addressing customers' real pain points with an efficient development pace. For some products, the development cycle has been shortened from 18 months to 9 months. Behind this market practice, more and more multinational companies are focusing on making good use of the comprehensive advantages of the Chinese market to create value for domestic customers, conducting product research and development based on the actual needs of the Chinese market, and applying innovations incubated in China to expand into global markets and serve customers worldwide.
It is reported that Siemens established a China Innovation Products Business Unit in 2024, placing the definition, research and development, and production functions for the corresponding products in China, with the goal of staying close to customers, improving response efficiency, and solving the pain points of Chinese customers with an efficient development pace. On October 1, 2026, the relevant China market innovation products were upgraded to the "SMART" series, continuing to increase innovation investment around the product concepts of Scalable, Market-fit, AI-ready, Reliable and Timely, so as to better serve the domestic market while actively exploring overseas markets.
Exporting Innovation to Empower Global Markets
The scope of services for innovation outcomes has expanded from "rooted in China, serving China" to "originating in China, serving the world." Some multinational companies have incorporated China into their own global research and development systems and applied local innovations to global markets. Siemens' business spans more than 200 countries and regions worldwide. Relying on the company's global research and development, production, certification and channel networks, it realizes the sharing and reuse of innovation outcomes from the Chinese market across multiple regional markets.
At present, Siemens is screening Chinese innovation products with overseas adaptability potential and gradually launching them in markets such as Southeast Asia, South America and Southern Europe. At the same time, because Siemens products are naturally suited to international certification, they can effectively help Chinese customers with overseas expansion needs open up overseas markets. New products created specifically for the Chinese market, such as the second-generation cost-effective small PLC, have received good market feedback in some overseas markets. Behind the movement of innovation outcomes toward the global market, China's complete domestic supply chain system, rapid response capability for components, and diverse digital application scenarios can help multinational companies shorten research and development iteration cycles. Domestic partners can also use multinational companies' global technology accumulation, compliance experience and overseas channels to make up for their own development shortcomings, achieving mutual progress.
An Open Platform for Two-Way Win-Win Outcomes
At the upcoming ninth China International Import Expo, Siemens will present case studies of digital and low-carbon transformation practices from more than 40 companies, bring 11 industrial AI application outcomes, and plans to sign cooperation agreements with about 40 Chinese companies, using the expo as a platform to share global development opportunities. At the same time, it will release the "Road to Carbon Exploration 鈥?In-Depth Insights Report on Corporate Green Overseas Expansion," presenting the practical results of energy conservation and efficiency improvement and globalization development of tens of thousands of Chinese and foreign companies across multiple industries. It will also launch the "Zero Carbon Pioneer Program" to help domestic suppliers advance carbon reduction efforts.
Behind this mutual benefit, foreign investment's contribution to China's economy is shifting from scale growth to quality improvement. In the first three quarters of this year, actual use of foreign investment in high-tech industries rose 33.8% year on year, accounting for 41.6%. Actual use of foreign investment in research and design services grew 59.2%, while energy conservation, environmental protection and clean industries grew 11.1%, and the digital economy industry grew 7%. Foreign investment profit reinvestment reached 93.99 billion yuan, up 4.7% year on year, with its share rising 1.5 percentage points. Foreign investment is accelerating its layout in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, biomedicine and advanced manufacturing, and China is speeding up its transformation from a manufacturing base to an innovation highland. "If the products we innovate in China not only serve domestic customers but also help domestic customers go global, while also serving customers around the world, that is something to be very proud of," Xiao Song said. Global experience provides mature references for local innovation, local innovation gives clear direction to an efficient development pace, and efficient market practice, in turn, drives the continuous optimization and iteration of the company's global experience.
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