Column

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, for Highly Group, all forms of innovation are the "lifeline" of the enterprise, and innovation has become the core driving force behind Highly's development. Highly has been forging ahead on its innovation journey — every exploration and every transformation embodies the wisdom and courage of Highly people. We hope our "Corporate Innovation" column opens a window for you to discover the stories behind Highly's innovations, draw strength for progress, and join hands in embracing the infinite possibilities of the future.

Crafting Cooling Technology with Dedication Safeguarding Health in High-Temperature Operations

In the peak of summer, high-temperature positions on the industrial frontline enter the most challenging period of the year. Metallurgical blast furnaces radiate intense heat, enclosed chemical workshops accumulate stifling heat with poor ventilation, construction sites are exposed to direct sunlight without shelter, and positions such as power operation and maintenance, underground mining, and heavy forging are subject to long-term exposure to extreme heat, intense radiation, and high workloads... Countless frontline industrial workers endure these scorching conditions year-round, suffering from the relentless heat.

Occupational health risks such as heat stress, physical exhaustion, sudden heatstroke, and even severe heat-related illnesses constantly challenge corporate safety management and employee health protection systems. For a long time, occupational health protection in high-temperature environments has been a key priority and a difficult challenge in China's work safety and occupational disease prevention efforts. How to leverage technological means to solve the challenge of high-temperature operation protection, reduce the risk of occupational diseases at the source, safeguard workers' life and health, and improve enterprise safety and operational efficiency has become an urgent question for the entire industrial refrigeration and occupational protection industry to answer.

Recently, Shanghai Highly Special Cooling Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Highly Special Cooling"), a subsidiary of Highly Group, delivered a benchmark answer: its independently developed personal cooling system was successfully selected for the "Shanghai Municipal Catalog of Recommended Advanced and Appropriate Technologies and Excellent Practice Cases for Engineering Control of Occupational Disease Hazards (2025 Edition)." This selection represents not only an official authoritative recognition by government authorities and industry experts of Highly Special Cooling's technological innovation capabilities, product practical value, and engineering promotion value, but also a significant milestone achievement for Highly Group's years of deep cultivation in the special cooling sector, commitment to independent innovation, and application of high-end equipment technology to enhance public health and industrial safety.

From keenly identifying industry pain points and conducting in-depth research for precise project initiation, to years of dedicated scientific research overcoming numerous technical challenges; from independent breakthroughs in three core technologies and repeated refinement of system architecture, to simulated working condition testing and on-site field optimization; from leveraging the Group's technological accumulation to build a solid R&D foundation, to stepping onto the industry recommendation stage; from pilot applications gaining positive feedback, to nationwide market expansion and positioning in a vast blue ocean of opportunity... Behind this compact wearable personal cooling system lies the unwavering dedication, perseverance, and problem-solving spirit of the Highly Special Cooling product R&D team over the years — a vivid reflection of the Company's professional expertise in the special cooling sector and its commitment to serving society and public welfare.

Identifying Pain Points with Vision, Leveraging Policy Momentum, High-Level Project Initiation Fills an Industry Gap

Highly Special Cooling's technological innovations always begin with genuine market demands and deep industry insights. When discussing the original rationale for the personal cooling system project, the Company's management and project leaders all stated that the starting point of R&D was to directly address the suffering of frontline workers in high-temperature environments and tackle the real shortcomings in corporate occupational protection.

China's current industrial system is vast, with a massive number of fixed high-temperature workstations and mobile high-temperature operation scenarios. These environments commonly feature high temperatures, intense radiation, enclosed spaces, long working hours, and high personnel mobility. Traditional heat-protection methods have many inherent shortcomings: fixed cooling equipment cannot follow personnel movement and has limited coverage; conventional cooling garments have poor breathability and lack active cooling functions; manual heat-protection measures rely on on-site management and are difficult to standardize and implement consistently; more critically, there is a lack of professional personal cooling equipment that can be worn next to the skin, offers intelligent temperature control, is lightweight and unburdensome, and is adaptable to multiple scenarios. Over time, these deficiencies can lead to occupational illnesses among workers, putting significant pressure on corporate safety production, personnel health protection, and workforce stability.

Application Scenarios

At the same time, national and local governments have continued to strengthen the construction of occupational health protection systems, aiming to improve working environments at the source and reduce hazardous factors. With clear policy direction, urgent market demand, and a clear technological gap in the industry — three factors converging — Highly Special Cooling, as a subsidiary of Highly Group focused on special cooling and recognized as a specialized and sophisticated enterprise, leveraged its years of industry sensitivity in industrial temperature control, special cooling, and precision environmental regulation to decisively designate the wearable personal cooling system as a key strategic R&D project and formally initiated project feasibility studies.

During the project preparation phase, the Company did not rush into implementation but adhered to a rigorous approach of "research first, positioning second, development third." The special research team visited frontline sites of various enterprises, immersing themselves in high-temperature working environments and engaging in face-to-face exchanges with corporate safety management personnel, workshop team leaders, and frontline workers, meticulously recording firsthand data including working hours, ambient temperatures, operational movement characteristics, wearing requirements, cooling pain points, and budget acceptance ranges.

Through systematic analysis, the research team accurately identified several core industry demands: first, portable mobile cooling not constrained by work location or confined spaces; second, precisely controllable body temperature sensation adjustable according to ambient temperature and individual constitution; third, lightweight and non-restrictive wear that does not interfere with routine operations such as bending, climbing, and carrying; fourth, robust safety and durability with resistance to high temperatures, corrosion, and tearing, adaptable to complex industrial conditions; and fifth, energy efficiency, low consumption, and ease of maintenance for batch deployment, long-term use, and routine upkeep by enterprises.

Based on solid research findings, Highly Special Cooling established a clear R&D direction and project objectives: leveraging the Group's compressor and core refrigeration technology expertise, and integrating micro-channel heat exchange, intelligent control, and new material wearable design, to develop a portable, wearable, intelligent, customizable, energy-efficient, and environmentally friendly professional personal cooling system — filling the gap in active protection for high-temperature operations and addressing the market void for systematic, large-scale commercial products of this type in China.

Dedicated Breakthroughs in Core Technologies | Forging a Benchmark Product Through Repeated Refinement

Technological innovation has never been a shortcut. Behind the independent and controllable core technologies lie countless experiments, countless iterations of trial and error, and countless days and nights of unwavering commitment. The personal cooling system is a cross-disciplinary integrated innovation product encompassing refrigeration engineering, fluid dynamics, intelligent algorithms, new materials engineering, and ergonomics. With a long R&D chain, numerous technical nodes, and demanding working condition adaptability requirements, the team encountered multiple technical bottlenecks throughout the development cycle, steadily tackling each challenge and overcoming every obstacle.

The Highly Special Cooling personal cooling system is comprised of three major modules: a portable chiller unit, a flexible liquid-cooling garment, and an intelligent control system, deeply integrating three core technologies — micro-channel high-efficiency heat exchange, intelligent precision temperature control, and lightweight wearable design — which together form the product's irreplicable core competitiveness. Despite the seemingly streamlined system architecture, every parameter, every component, and every logic algorithm underwent hundreds or even thousands of rounds of simulation, prototype testing, extreme working condition validation, and on-site field trials.

During the development of micro-channel high-efficiency heat exchange technology, the R&D team faced a primary challenge: balancing "miniaturization and lightweighting" against "high heat exchange and high efficiency." Traditional refrigeration heat exchange structures were bulky, heavy, and energy-intensive, completely unsuitable for portable and wearable applications. The challenge of reducing the unit's size, weight, and portability while maintaining heat exchange capacity, fast cooling speed, and lower energy consumption became the first major hurdle at the early stage of development. After hundreds of rounds of structural optimization and performance calibration, the engineering team at Highly Special Cooling ultimately broke through the technical bottleneck, achieving a significant improvement in heat exchange efficiency, a notable reduction in overall unit size and weight, and energy consumption reduced by over 30% compared to traditional equivalent equipment — delivering a compact form factor, powerful cooling, and energy-efficient, low-carbon performance in one package.

Intelligent precision temperature control technology serves as the brain of the entire system and represents the most significant differentiator from ordinary cooling garments. Industrial high-temperature environments feature wide temperature fluctuations and rapid humidity changes, with varying labor intensities across different job types and notable differences in individual physical perception. Coarse, fixed-level cooling modes cannot meet personalized needs. The R&D team independently developed a proprietary intelligent control algorithm, equipped with high-precision distributed temperature sensing modules capable of real-time monitoring of both ambient temperature and key body surface temperature zones. The system automatically and dynamically adjusts cooling power and circulation flow to achieve high-precision constant temperature control, with temperature fluctuations maintained within an extremely narrow range. Simultaneously, multiple manual adjustment modes are reserved to accommodate the personalized cooling needs of workers of different ages, physical conditions, and labor intensities. To ensure stable system operation under harsh industrial conditions including dust, oil contamination, electromagnetic interference, and high temperature and humidity, the team conducted thousands of hours of uninterrupted aging tests, anti-interference tests, and start-stop reliability tests under various simulated extreme scenarios, continuously refining algorithm logic and hardware compatibility to achieve intelligent temperature control that is sensitive, precise, stable, and worry-free.

Lightweight wearable and ergonomic design directly determines frontline workers' acceptance and long-term user experience. The R&D team adhered to the principles of "practicality first, comfort as king, and adaptability to working conditions," selecting skin-friendly, breathable, soft-fitting, tear-resistant, high-temperature-resistant, and easy-to-clean specialty flexible fabrics. Incorporating extensive body dimension data and work movement simulations, they optimized liquid-cooling tube routing, distribution density, and garment tailoring to achieve a snug yet non-restrictive fit with more uniform heat dissipation, allowing full freedom of movement for bending, reaching, climbing, and squatting without constraint. For special scenarios such as intense thermal radiation in metallurgy, corrosive gases in chemical plants, and outdoor exposure to wind, rain, and sunlight, the team developed an enhanced protective liquid-cooling garment with improved flame retardancy, thermal insulation, corrosion resistance, and tear resistance, achieving full coverage of both standard and customized models to meet the differentiated protection needs of various industries.

The development journey was fraught with challenges: flexible tubing prone to leakage after repeated bending, insufficient battery life for continuous operation, and unreasonable weight distribution leading to user fatigue — every minor issue could potentially affect the final user experience. Through countless late nights with laboratory lights burning, numerous on-site industrial field tests and adjustments, and extensive rounds of data calculation, comparison, and parameter fine-tuning, the R&D team, with a spirit of craftsmanship and continuous improvement, perfected every technical detail. Ultimately, the personal cooling system evolved from design blueprints and proof-of-concept prototypes into a mature, high-performance, safe, reliable, and multi-scenario-ready industrial product. The system's key components are now independently designed, manufactured, and integrated by the Company, ensuring full control over core technologies. This not only guarantees product quality consistency but also provides solid support for future cost optimization, mass production, and customized upgrades.

Winning Authoritative Recognition with Proven Strength | Embarking on a New Phase of Industrialization from This Milestone of Honor

Dedicated cultivation yields its own harvest, and craftsmanship eventually resonates. Compared with traditional heat-protection methods, the Highly Special Cooling personal cooling system offers multiple irreplaceable comprehensive advantages: At the safety level, active precision cooling significantly reduces the probability of heat stress, heatstroke, and related safety incidents, reinforcing the bottom line of enterprise work safety. At the performance level, a comfortable and stable thermal environment effectively alleviates work fatigue, enhances concentration and sustained working capacity, indirectly boosting production efficiency. At the economic level, the system features energy-efficient, low-consumption operation, long service life, and modular easy-maintenance design, enabling long-term reuse after a one-time deployment, with total operation and maintenance costs far lower than traditional fragmented heat-protection methods. At the adaptability level, the system can be customized for different industries, working conditions, and worker populations, offering flexible adaptation to various high-temperature scenarios with both versatility and customizability.

With the government endorsement from the "2025 Shanghai Municipal Catalog of Recommended Advanced and Appropriate Technologies for Engineering Control of Occupational Disease Hazards," the product has significantly enhanced Highly Special Cooling's brand influence and industry voice in the specialized cooling, occupational health protection, and industrial temperature control segments. It has also provided a systematic, standardized, and intelligent new solution for high-temperature operation protection in China, driving the industry's upgrade from traditional "passive heat protection" to technology-enabled "active precision cooling," and leading the wearable personal cooling equipment sector toward standardization, high-end development, and broader adoption.

As a specialized and sophisticated SME and high-tech enterprise under Highly Group, Highly Special Cooling has for many years remained firmly focused on the core specialized cooling sector, maintaining consistent investment in innovative R&D. Leveraging the Group's core compressor technology advantages, the Company has built a complete innovation industry chain spanning from core component R&D and complete equipment manufacturing to system-customized solutions. Its long-term R&D accumulation, robust innovation system, and mature industrialization capabilities have laid a solid foundation for the successful development, field optimization, award recognition, and market deployment of the personal cooling system. This selection in the municipal advanced technology catalog once again confirms Highly Special Cooling's proven strength and leading position in the specialized cooling and occupational health temperature control fields.

Deepening Market Presence and Expanding Application Territory | Multi-Dimensional Value Unleashes Broad Development Prospects

The ultimate destination of technological innovation is to enter the market, serve industry, and benefit people's livelihoods. With the continuous improvement of national occupational health regulations, the increasingly consolidated primary responsibility of enterprises for work safety, and the growing health protection awareness among frontline workers, professional cooling equipment for high-temperature operations has entered a golden development window driven by the convergence of policy support, market demand, and regulatory requirements. The industry market space is vast, and growth momentum is robust.

At present, the system has been piloted and deployed in batch trials at multiple large enterprises. Feedback from frontline workers on the wearing experience has been positive: the unit is lightweight and unobtrusive, the liquid-cooling garment fits comfortably, cooling is rapid upon startup, and temperature is adjustable. Under prolonged high-intensity high-temperature operations, users experience a refreshing and stable sensation, completely freeing them from the previous state of oppressive heat and physical and mental exhaustion. Safety management departments at the pilot enterprises have also given high praise.

Based on the current market landscape, Highly Special Cooling has developed a clear and pragmatic medium- and long-term market promotion strategy: in the short term, focus on core high-temperature industries, establish a number of benchmark demonstration projects, generate word-of-mouth through model projects, and drive batch procurement in regional industries; in the medium term, gradually refine full-industry scenario adaptation solutions and standardized product matrices, expanding application fields; in the long term, leverage the official endorsement of the municipal advanced technology catalog to gradually expand and radiate across the national market.

Looking ahead over the next three to five years, as occupational health policies continue to deepen, products undergo continuous iteration and upgrades, and market awareness becomes widespread, the personal cooling system is expected to gradually become standard protective equipment for high-temperature workstations. Market penetration is set to increase steadily and rapidly, positioning the system as a new core growth driver and flagship product for Highly Special Cooling. At the same time, the Company will seize this opportunity to pursue ongoing technological iteration, focusing on lightweighting, miniaturization, extended battery life, AI-powered intelligent adaptive temperature regulation, IoT-enabled remote operation and maintenance, and modular multi-scenario adaptation. Through continuous optimization of user experience and enrichment of the product portfolio, Highly Special Cooling will continue to consolidate its technological leadership position in the industry.

Staying True to the Innovation Mission, Empowered by the Group | Fulfilling Industrial Responsibility and Writing a New Chapter of Development

A single tree does not make a forest; only through collective strength can one go far. The technological breakthroughs and honors achieved by Highly Special Cooling in the personal cooling system are not the result of a single enterprise's solitary efforts, but rather the fruitful outcome of Highly Group's long-term commitment to an innovation-driven development strategy and its comprehensive empowerment of subsidiaries.

Highly Group has consistently focused on its core business of refrigeration equipment, adhering to the development direction of high-end, intelligent, and green growth. It has continuously strengthened support for its subsidiaries in technology R&D, talent development, resource sharing, and industrial collaboration, encouraging each subsidiary to focus on niche tracks, deepen expertise in specialized fields, and overcome key core technologies — pursuing a path of high-quality development through specialization, refinement, differentiation, and innovation-driven breakthroughs. From the open sharing of core compressor technologies, to the collaborative use of group-level R&D platforms and laboratory resources; from two-way mobility and training of high-end technical talent, to top-level strategic planning guidance; from coordinated brand image empowerment, to joint expansion of market channels and customer resources — Highly Group has built a high-level innovation development platform for Highly Special Cooling, providing a powerful backing for the iteration of special cooling technologies and the launch of new products.

Looking ahead, Highly Group will continue to uphold its development philosophy of strengthening the enterprise through innovation, continuously gathering innovation resources, activating innovation momentum, and supporting more specialized and sophisticated subsidiaries like Highly Special Cooling to devote themselves to deep research in their respective niche fields, break through bottlenecks, lead their industries, and support the Group's overall high-quality development through one independent innovation achievement after another.