Employees work at a Midea home appliance production facility in Ain Sokhna, Egypt, on Jan 19. XIN MENGCHEN/XINHUA
Midea Group, a Chinese home appliance giant, launched an initiative on Tuesday to help domestic manufacturers build and operate factories overseas through a comprehensive package of digital, artificial intelligence-powered and operational solutions.
The Go-Global Partner Program has been introduced at a time when a growing number of Chinese companies are accelerating overseas expansion amid shifting global supply chains and rising investment in overseas production, said Zhang Xiaoyi, vice-president and chief data officer of Midea Group.
The initiative seeks to address some of the most persistent challenges facing manufacturers venturing abroad, including fragmented cross-border supply chains, inconsistent quality standards, complex regulatory requirements and cross-cultural workforce management, Zhang said.
The program is built on lessons learned from Midea's operations in Thailand, where the company has transformed its air conditioner factory into an overseas Lighthouse Factory — a first for China's AC industry — in which multiple AI agents collaborate across production, logistics, quality control and management functions.
