On 28 April 2025, a brainstorming session on technological innovation in the sports industry opened at ANTA’s operations building in Xiamen. The Sports Goods Industry Innovation Consortium (hereafter “the consortium”), led by ANTA Group, held its first board meeting. XINGI TECH Co., Ltd., as one of the consortium’s founding council members, presented its innovative achievements in UHMWPE fiber, and the remarks of Chairman Zhou Xinji during the exchange session added a touch of “fiber technology” to this gathering on industry-university-research collaborative innovation.
At the meeting, Ding Shizhong, Chairman of the Board of ANTA Group, unveiled the consortium’s first five-year science and technology plan in his capacity as its chairman, setting out nine strategic directions including high-performance materials and sports science. Behind the plan lie the basic research foundations of leading universities such as Tsinghua University and Donghua University, the determination of industrial chain enterprises such as XINGI TECH and Sinopec to tackle hard technical problems, and the resolve of industry, universities and research institutes to pull together as one.
As the consortium’s first technology platforms, the membrane technology platform and the basalt fiber technology platform drew wide discussion: the former focuses on an environmentally friendly breakthrough in bio-based fluorine-free waterproof and breathable membrane technology, while the latter builds on Wuhan Textile University’s spinning technology for the lunar-surface national flag to explore the limits of materials. XINGI TECH took a different path, marking a distinctive coordinate on the consortium’s innovation map with the light weight and high performance of UHMWPE fiber.
“In sports goods, one gram less weight or one point more strength can be the key to changing the user experience.” Chairman Zhou’s remarks during the innovation exchange session went straight to an industry pain point. He revealed that XINGI TECH and ANTA’s R&D team had worked closely together, using fiber modification technology to overcome the two major difficulties of low-temperature setting and surface bonding, successfully applying UHMWPE fiber to several footwear materials and achieving a breakthrough of “less weight without less toughness”.
Even more striking was the scope for extending the technology: for outdoor sports scenarios, XINGI TECH is exploring the integration of UHMWPE staple fiber into sole material systems. “The cut-resistant properties of this material can not only extend product life but also build an invisible safety barrier for consumers.” Chairman Zhou’s outlook prompted murmurs of agreement around the room.
In Chairman Zhou’s view, the value of the consortium is like an “innovation bridge”: “ANTA’s keen insight into consumer demand, universities’ cutting-edge theoretical research and XINGI TECH’s accumulated fiber technology—what the three produce together is not just product upgrades but a reconstruction of industry standards.”
With the addition of new members such as Zhejiang University and Shenghong Holding, the network for technology transfer is expanding rapidly. From membrane technology collaboration with Donghua University to the exploration of composite reinforcing materials with Wuhan Textile University, the technological story of UHMWPE fiber is being written in richer chapters within the consortium’s ecosystem.
Technology knows no borders, but innovation needs a fulcrum. Standing at the new starting point of the consortium’s launch, XINGI TECH will continue to use UHMWPE fiber as its core anchor and to deepen the two tracks of light weighting and functionalization, with every step pointing to its original aspiration of reshaping the sports experience with fiber technology. In the future, with the consortium as a link, the company will accelerate the cross-sector extension of fiber materials into sports scenarios, turning sparks of technology from the laboratory into product value within consumers’ reach. As Chairman Zhou put it: “The strength of a fiber lies both in the performance limits of the material itself and in the resilience of collaborative innovation across the industrial chain.” XINGI TECH is willing to be this “invisible thread”, weaving with technological toughness the fabric of China’s smart sports manufacturing as it rises in the global value chain.
