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LONGi announces the “Lighthouse Project” to expand the agile intelligent manufacturing to more of its own production bases across the globe

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JIAXING, China, May 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — On May 23rd, LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “LONGi “), a global leader in solar technology, officially announced the “Lighthouse Project”, which will continue to rapidly expand the agile intelligent manufacturing model of LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory to more production and manufacturing bases, achieving a comprehensive upgrade of production intelligent manufacturing capabilities. This sets a digitalization benchmark for high-quality development in the PV industry and leads the way forward.

The first “Lighthouse Factory” in the global PV industry – LONGi’s Jiaxing Production Base, lifted the mysterious veil for the public. An experience group composed of industry experts, customer representatives, and media journalists became the first visitors to LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory, immersing themselves in the production line and experiencing the charm of “Lighthouse Factory” intelligent manufacturing.

Established in 2020, LONGi’s Jiaxing Production Base mainly produces LONGi’s BC (Back-Contact) series of high-efficiency solar modules. It has Phase I, II, and III factories, covering a total area of more than 1,300 acres, with 51 intelligent production lines and an overall module production capacity exceeding 35GW, making it one of the largest industrial clusters in the industry.

On December 14, 2023, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released a new batch of “Lighthouse Network” lists, and LONGi’s Jiaxing Production Base was the only factory in the global PV industry to be included. This signifies that LONGi’s achievements in intelligent manufacturing and digitalization are leading globally, becoming a representative of advanced manufacturing, and the first global “Lighthouse Factory” in the PV industry has attracted much attention.

During this close-up experience at LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory, all members of the experience group expressed their shock and unprecedentedly felt the disruptive upgrade of AI intelligence to traditional industry. The innovation of LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory is not only in the transformation of production line automation and intelligence but also in the reconstruction of production relations. AI intelligence has become the brain of production management, continuously innovating autonomously based on big data models, achieving a truly meaningful intelligent manufacturing upgrade and self-driving force, and safeguarding quality and efficiency.

LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory has built over 30 digital use cases, achieving a 43% increase in product quality reliability, an 84% reduction in product production and delivery cycle, and a 20% reduction in overall unit energy consumption at the base, becoming a model of high-quality development in the photovoltaic industry.

The most core aspect of LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory is the five major coolest technologies. AI intelligent distribution of solar cells realizes precise delivery of customer needs, ensuring efficient production by intelligently optimizing daily production plans. More flexible automation in production ensures the standardization of each link in the module production process, fully meeting the customized scene requirements of customers. AI quality inspection throughout the entire life cycle of product production leaves no place for quality hazards, ensuring the quality of the product is as solid as a rock. The end-to-end delivery system has reconstructed the intelligent management of order production and delivery cycles, achieving rapid and high-quality satisfaction of customer product needs. Intelligent human resource management has greatly improved production efficiency while enhancing the innovation of employees, transforming each excellent skill and experience into data, continuously optimizing skills and management autonomously, ensuring the optimal arrangement of order demands and human resources, and effectively guaranteeing high-quality product output.

The combination of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud platforms, and industrial muscles is the four elements that make LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory successful, and also the core of LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing. LONGi’s BC (Back-Contact) full-scene products have also reached a new level under the support of LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing. The reason why TaiRay silicon wafers, HPBC2.0, Hi-MO 9, Hi-MO X6 Max, and other major products have concentrated on explosions this year is due to LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing’s absolute satisfaction in understanding customer needs.

LONGi’s Vice President Zhang Haimeng said in his keynote speech: Since the official announcement of BC (Back-Contact) technology last September, LONGi has released multiple new scene-based module products. Whether it is anti-dust accumulation or heat and humidity resistance, the core purpose is to meet the customized needs of customers through differentiated innovation. All of this is inseparable from the confidence in production strength brought by LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing, and it is also the strong support of LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing that has truly implemented “customer-centric.”

During the panel session of the day, Hu Zhifeng, Head of Intelligent Manufacturing Department, Module Manufacturing Center of LONGi, revealed that the newly launched Hi-MO X6 Max modules will be officially put into production at LONGi’s Jiaxing Lighthouse Factory in the near future. With the help of digital and intelligent means, product quality is improved, and energy consumption is reduced. “Use the most advanced production technology to achieve the highest level of technical products and create higher value for customers.”

LONGi has always adhered to the core value of customer value, providing customers with high-value and reliable products as its own responsibility, continuously exploring new paths for the clean energy industry, from efficiency research and development to product and solution scenario, from traditional manufacturing to intelligent manufacturing driven by digitalization, step by step towards a green energy world, leading the global energy transition with LONGi’s intelligent manufacturing.

About LONGi

Founded in 2000, LONGi is committed to being the world’s leading solar technology company, focusing on customer-driven value creation for full scenario energy transformation.

Under its mission of ‘making the best of solar energy to build a green world’, LONGi has dedicated itself to technology innovation and established five business sectors, covering mono silicon wafers cells and modules, commercial & industrial distributed solar solutions, green energy solutions and hydrogen equipment. The company has honed its capabilities to provide green energy and has more recently, also embraced green hydrogen products and solutions to support global zero carbon development. www.longi.com 

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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