Among the second batch of 111 key cultivation pilot platforms announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Qingdao Double Star Co., Ltd.’s “High Performance Rubber Tire Technology and Waste Rubber Recycling Pilot Platform” is particularly eye-catching. It is the only company selected in this selection in the tire manufacturing industry.
While the industry leader Zhongce Rubber is spending 5.5 billion yuan to build a smart factory, and Linglong Tire is focusing on material research and development, Doublestar has obtained a national-level “ticket” with its pilot platform covering the entire chain of “AI design – performance testing – recycling”. This is a signal for China’s tire industry to shift from scale expansion to technological upgrading with pilot capabilities as the core.
The core advantage of Double Star Pilot Platform lies in the deep integration of cutting-edge digital technology with traditional manufacturing and green recycling.
Its key “soft” strength is the tire AI digital twin design platform.
The traditional tire development process is lengthy, with long cycles from design to verification and high costs.
Doublestar’s AI platform can complete the entire process simulation verification of tire structure, pattern, and formula in the digital virtual space.
After R&D personnel input parameters, the system simulates real road conditions based on big data and automatically iterates and optimizes solutions, significantly reducing the number of physical sample development and experiments, significantly improving R&D efficiency and shortening cycles.
This technology supports the development of the world’s first “fully explosion-proof” safety tire. This product uses unique technology and can continue driving at a speed of 60km/h for 30 minutes under zero tire pressure, adapting to the design trend of new energy vehicles without spare tires.
In terms of “hard” strength, the platform is equipped with advanced testing equipment and can undertake pilot testing services for more than a hundred types of high-performance tires every year.
More importantly, the platform builds a closed loop from research and development to recycling.
Through joint research and development with universities, Doublestar has built three 10,000-ton continuous and clean waste tire pyrolysis plants, which can convert waste tires into recycled oil, recycled carbon black and other products, achieving 100% resource utilization of waste tires, and providing a feasible path to solve the common problems of backward waste tire recycling technology and insufficient high-value applications in the industry.
Double Star’s ability to become the “only” in the industry is rooted in its hard-to-replicate entire industry chain ecology and clear public service positioning.
Doublestar is the only full-industry chain enterprise in the global tire industry that covers rubber tire R&D and production, intelligent equipment and recycling. Its world’s first full-process tire “Industry 4.0” intelligent factory provides the platform with a seamless verification scenario from “laboratory samples” to “industrialized products”.
At the same time, the platform has emphasized public service attributes from the beginning of its construction and is highly consistent with the selection guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It undertakes a large number of pilot services every year and promotes the transformation of industry technological achievements.
The national recognition of the Double Star pilot platform has promoted the transformation of industry competition logic from price war to technology competition and cooperation.
Currently, the domestic tire industry faces bottlenecks such as long traditional R&D cycles, shortcomings in key materials, and backward technology for high-value utilization of waste tires. The Double Star platform provides solutions through AI digital twins and recycling technology.
Unlike Zhongce Rubber, which focuses on the intelligent upgrading of production links, and Linglong Tire, which focuses on upstream material innovation, Doublestar chose to build a pilot platform, a path that is more industry infrastructure.
Policy resources are tilted towards the pilot stage, indicating that the threshold and focus of future industry technology competition are moving upward.
Double Star plans to further open up platform resources, deepen industry-university-research cooperation, undertake more than a hundred types of tire research and development and recycling technology pilot services every year, and also try to export full-process manufacturing technology overseas.
However, the real challenge lies in how to transform technological advantages into sustained industry leadership, including breakthroughs in “high-value” technology for recycling waste rubber, and realizing market-oriented and sustainable operations of the platform.
In the long run, China’s tire industry is standing at the transition point from a “manufacturing power” to a “manufacturing power”. The level of pilot platform construction is related to the speed and quality of industrial upgrading. Double Star’s selection is the beginning of the industry’s emphasis on technological infrastructure construction. Whoever can build a more solid and open technology pilot ecosystem in the future will have the say in defining products and standards in global competition.
