GuShiio.com ① With the rise of demand for AI data centers, the requirements for transmission speed are getting higher and higher. Therefore, the combination of passive and active is an inevitable trend in the future. Regoda is gradually realizing combination iteration from passive to active;
② Regoda has cooperated with many robot companies at home and abroad to carry out product development, testing and certification and other related work.
“Interview with An ‘an” is an in-depth interview column produced by Xu An’ an, executive president of Interface Financial Union. Dialogue with 1000 industry leaders from an investment perspective, covering media innovation, VC/PE, information services, financial technology, trading systems, strategic emerging and other directions.
Editor’s note: After hard work, you will know how far the road is. This is an interview program for core executives (including but not limited to chairmen and founders) of listed companies in the field of science and technology innovation. What are their little-known legendary experiences? How did their mental journey change before and after the company went public? “Dialogue with Science and Technology Creators” explores with you in order to look into the future.
In this issue, the guest in the “Dialogue with Science and Technology Pioneers” column is Wu Shijun, Chairman of Regoda.
“For the connector industry, comprehensive competitiveness such as response speed, technological advantages, innovation capabilities and management capabilities in the target field is the key to the company’s stand out.”
丨 Personal introduction
Wu Shijun, Chairman of Ruikeda, has served as a salesperson and deputy manager of the sales department of Sichuan Huafeng Enterprise Group Co., Ltd. since July 1998. In January 2006, he founded Ruikeda Limited and has served as supervisor, executive director and general manager of Ruikeda Limited. From May 2014 to April 2023, he served as chairman and general manager of the company. From April 2023, he will serve as chairman of the company, and concurrently serves as executive partner of Lianrui Investment, general manager and executive director of Jiangsu Aliko, executive director of Sichuan Aliko, executive director of Sichuan Aliko, executive director of Wuhan Yiweikang, executive director of Ruikeda Connection Technology, and director of Singapore Ruikeda.
丨 The first label
Science and Technology Innovation Board’s “first connector”
丨 Company profile
Regoda is a national specialized and new “little giant” enterprise specializing in the research and development, production, sales and service of connector products. Its main products include connectors, connector components and modules, etc. It is one of the companies with both optical, electrical, microwave, fluid and data connector product research and development and production capabilities.
“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, February 13 (Reporter Qiu Siyu and Li Yu) Entering 2025, the AI wave will continue to be hot and accelerate. From hardware upstream of the industrial chain to downstream applications and commercialization scenarios, AI is changing people’s lives at an unprecedented rate.
If AI is the “intelligent brain”, connectors are important “nervous systems” and communication bridges for electronic circuits, becoming the basic components of electronic equipment. As the development of AI promotes the construction of large data centers, innovation in connector and I/O technology has become the key to achieving high-speed data transmission.
At present, the domestic communications, consumer electronics, automobile and other industries in the Yangtze River Delta region and the Pearl River Delta region are relatively concentrated, and there is a large demand for connector products. Therefore, many companies related to the connector industry are also gathered in these places.
It takes half an hour’s drive from Suzhou Park Station to reach the location of Ruikeda, the “first connector” of Science and Technology Innovation Board. The company mainly designs and manufactures products such as connectors, components and modules. It can provide customers with communications,”electrification” and “intelligence” of new energy vehicles, energy storage and new energy, industrial robots, rail transit, and medical equipment. Comprehensive connection system solutions in other fields.
Photo: The gate of Ruikeda Company; Source: Photo by a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily
“Strategy is the combination of well-thought-out strategies with emerging strategic dynamics.” Walking into Regoda, you can see multiple purple flags with similar slogans flying in the wind, adding a lot of vitality to this company that has been established nearly 20 years ago.
“Companies must remain vibrant, and corporate culture is one of them.” Wu Shijun, chairman of Regoda, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter,”In the past two years, the biggest change in the company has been the effectiveness of the ‘talent strategy’, which is also the core of the future.”
Back in 2006 when Regoda was founded, the connector industry was mainly dominated by European, American, Japanese and Korean companies, which meant that new entrants faced huge challenges. Later, as the focus of global connector production shifted to the Asia-Pacific region, China has become the world’s largest connector market.
Talking about the opportunity to establish Regoda, Wu Shijun was quite moved. In his view, the connector industry has huge potential. Under the wave of the times when domestic industries are bravely climbing towards the high-end technology field, China companies have opened up their own world in the connector field.
In Regoda’s exhibition hall, connector products used in different scenarios are placed, including low-voltage power supply connectors, communication board-to-board RF connectors, high-voltage connectors, power replacement connectors, data transmission connectors… Behind each connector, it highlights the scientific and technological innovation power belonging to China.
丨 AIDC craze catalyzes surge in AEC demand and related products start testing
Recently, with the explosion of DeepSeek, the popularity of AI has been pushed to a new peak. Its “low-cost, high-performance” technological advantages are expected to drive further outbreaks of demand for AI applications and reasoning computing power. While the AI data center infrastructure process is accelerating, various demands derived from AIDC are showing explosive growth, and connector manufacturers will also receive the “cake”.
From the perspective of overall demand, Wu Shijun told the reporter of “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”,”The market for data center connectors has a large room for growth, and it is expected that the entire market size will reach several billion dollars by 2030. Judging from the AI data center alone, the company expects that capex will grow rapidly every year by 2027. After 2027, it will return to a stable and continuous construction trend, and there is still a need for updates and iterations every year.”
In January this year, according to information released by the Shanghai City Market Supervision and Administration, Regoda planned to establish a joint venture with Suzhou Xuchuang and Changshu Jinghongsheng, mainly engaged in the digital high-speed copper wire component business. “The joint venture company will mainly focus on AEC-related businesses.” Wu Shijun introduced it to the reporter of “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”.
AEC (Active Electrical Cable) is a copper cable made of narrow-diameter copper wire for short-range and high-speed transmission in data centers. The data center connector previously developed by Regoda is a passive device.With the rising demand for AI data centers, the requirements for transmission speed are becoming higher and higher. Therefore, the combination of passive and active is an inevitable trend in the future. Regoda is gradually realizing combined iteration from passive to active.
“AEC is a relatively excellent solution. Its power consumption and cost are much lower than optical modules, but its transmission distance and signal transmission speed are better than pure electric solutions.” Wu Shijun told the reporter of “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”,”But AEC also has its technical difficulties: AEC has added chips and drivers to pure passive technology, becoming a combination of passive and active, requiring manufacturers to grasp the know-how in the two fields of connectors and chips.”
Regarding the progress of research and development and commercialization of AEC products, Wu Shijun revealed,”Currently, the company’s AEC products have been communicated and tested with most leading customers, and testing will begin this year.”
In terms of test cycle, it is reported that active products need to be jointly debugged with downstream customer equipment, and the test cycle is usually 3 months to 4 months. “The intentions of most customers are highly certain, but the specific orders and the resulting increase in performance still need to depend on the results after joint debugging and testing. Currently, the company is carrying out key development for several customers.” Wu Shijun mentioned.
Judging from the proportion of technical route applications, Regoda expects that the proportion of AEC-related products in the field of data center connectivity will reach 30% in the future.
丨 Strong growth in the automobile business, orders for cooperative models are expected to be released one after another in the past two years
At a time when demand in the connector industry is surging, Regoda is optimistic about its performance.
Wu Shijun revealed in an interview with a reporter from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that in the fourth quarter of 2024, the company’s automotive business and communications business both achieved varying degrees of growth, with the growth momentum of the automotive business sector being particularly strong. At the same time, it is expected to maintain a good trend of rapid growth in 2025.
AEC-related products belong to Regoda’s communications business segment, while the automotive business segment is Regoda’s largest source of revenue and also occupies an important position in the company’s overall business structure.
In the field of new energy vehicles, the connector market presents two major development directions: electrification and intelligence. Among them, in the field of electrification, Regoda has accounted for about 25% of the domestic market, which is on par with several overseas giants; in the direction of intelligence, although Regoda is still in its infancy, it has been clearly identified as an important development direction in the future. In the field of communication base stations, Regoda’s market share has reached approximately 30%.
In the new energy vehicle terminal market, major manufacturers have fallen into fierce competition in “price wars”. Regarding the issue of price pressure transmission, Wu Shijun said that in the negotiation process with customers, Regoda usually works with customers to carry out innovation iterations to achieve simultaneous cost reduction. “The company’s old products have an average price drop of about 1 percentage point every year. At the same time, Regoda continues to reduce costs in the supply chain, optimize processes, and optimize technical products every year, launch new products with high gross profit, and expand new markets. The proportion of new products and new markets reaches approximately 30%. Overall, the company’s gross profit margin has remained stable.”
At the same time, Wu Shijun mentioned to the reporter of “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” in an interview,”Judging from the overall process of industrial development, it is an inevitable trend that product prices continue to decline, but prices and gross profit margins are not absolutely positive correlation.” He further explained that with the continuous emergence of scale effects and superimposed technical iteration, product costs continue to decrease, so the impact on the company’s gross profit margin is relatively limited.
Wu Shijun also revealed that with the steady growth of market demand, various manufacturers are currently less likely to sell at a loss, and have not adopted the previous competitive strategy of “vicious price bargaining”. “The company’s overall sales (revenue) achieved growth of more than 50% in 2024. It is expected that Regoda will continue to maintain rapid growth in the next few years.”
For the connector industry, comprehensive competitiveness such as response speed, technological advantages, innovation capabilities and management capabilities in the target field is the key to the company’s stand out.”
From a demand perspective, the connector industry cycle in which Regoda is located has certain predictability. Taking the automotive industry as an example, Regoda usually signs long-term contracts with automotive customers. After the contract is signed, it will take about 3 to 4 years for the customer’s model to enter mass production. Orders previously signed by Regoda are expected to enter the release period from 2025 to 2027. According to Wu Shijun, the company has achieved initial results in the layout of the newly expanded track.
In terms of production capacity, Wu Shijun said that Regoda’s current production capacity is basically at full capacity, and its production capacity is about 3 billion yuan in output value. The company’s Taizhou factory project and the new investment project Suzhou Phase II factory will increase its production capacity to an output value of 8 billion yuan after the subsequent construction of the project is completed.
丨 Expand low-altitude economy and develop humanoid robot tracks to overseas markets
Currently, the intelligent manufacturing industry is iteratively upgrading at an unprecedented rate, and the wave of digitalization and intelligent transformation has swept across the global industrial field. In this context, emerging industries such as humanoid robots and low-altitude economies have sprung up and become new business growth points for many companies. Regoda is also committed to developing emerging tracks.
Among them, the low-altitude economic field is one of the important application scenarios for Regoda’s horizontal expansion. It is understood that connector products used in low-altitude aircraft such as flying cars and eVOTL have high similarities with connector products in the field of new energy vehicles in terms of technical principles and product structure, and have strong technical mobility. This allows Regoda to enter the low-altitude economic market with its accumulated technology and production experience in the field of new energy vehicle connectors.
Regarding the development prospects of the low-altitude economic market, in Wu Shijun’s view, factors such as comprehensive policy openness, improvement of product safety and market maturity,It is expected that the low-altitude economic market will usher in rapid growth in the next three years and gradually enter the stage of mass production.
The humanoid robot field is different from Regoda’s current main business. It is reported that connector products used in the field of robots are significantly different from the company’s existing main products in terms of product characteristics, technical directions and energy consumption requirements, which requires a large amount of technological innovation as support. In order to break through technical barriers,Regoda has cooperated with many robot companies at home and abroad to carry out product development, testing and certification and other related work.
In terms of market expansion, overseas markets are an important strategic layout direction for Regoda. Currently, Regoda’s overseas business revenue accounts for more than 20% of total sales, and the company plans to increase the proportion of overseas business to about 50% by 2030. In terms of regional layout, Regoda mainly focuses on the American and European markets. “In Europe, most customers are concentrated in the automotive field. The company has successfully acquired some large projects and is expected to start mass production around the end of 2025, and revenue from related projects will be gradually released. The American market is mainly aimed at North America.” Wu Shijun revealed.
Regoda adopts an overseas expansion strategy that is “adapted to local conditions”. Currently, the company has established factories in the United States and Mexico, and will start preparations for a European factory in 2025. According to reports, its U.S. factory responded to local localized production and manufacturing policies and was operating in good condition, achieving profitability and reaching full production within one year; the Mexican factory has been established for two years and has gradually started small-batch production; in Europe, Rukeda expects to complete the site selection and establishment of the factory by the end of this year.
Regarding overseas tariff-related issues, Wu Shijun said that the company will continue to pay attention and formulate effective response measures. “At present, tariff factors have no significant impact on the company’s overall business, and the company’s overseas markets and headquarters business have maintained rapid growth.”
In terms of corporate development strategy, mergers and acquisitions have become one of Regoda’s key tasks in 2025. The company’s M & A direction mainly focuses on five major areas. In addition to the two traditional advantageous areas of automobiles and communications, it also includes three emerging directions: AI, robotics, and medical care.
