Helotus Smart IoT (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. Files IPO Prospectus Highlighting Digital-Intelligent Solutions for Scientific Research Facilities
In July 2022, Shenzhen was scorching under the intense summer sun. The “Technical Exchange Conference on Smart Laboratory Construction and Operation,” hosted by Heluo Intelligent IoT (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., a smart laboratory solutions provider, was in full swing at the Wyndham Grand Hotel.
This exchange event held exceptional significance for Heluo Zhilian. Tian Shouhui, General Manager of Heluo Zhilian, remarked that the event provided a comprehensive summary and review of the company’s reflections, insights, and actions over the past two years since its establishment. Meanwhile, the unveiling of the Smart Laboratory “1349” framework marks a leap from partial to holistic capabilities in Heluo Zhilian’s products, technology, and service offerings.
HeLuo ZhiLian, established in 2020, was co-founded by four industry veterans with over 15 years of experience in the laboratory sector. As an emerging technology company specializing in the development and management of intelligent operational platforms for scientific research facilities, it is committed to leveraging innovative digital-intelligence technologies to create safe, stable, green, and efficient smart laboratories.
HeLuo Zhilian Core Founding TeamFrom professional fields including laboratory construction, operations, scientific instruments, IBMS, IoT, ICT, and IT,He established China’s earliest professional portal and forum dedicated to laboratory construction—“Lab China” and “Lab Community”—and in 2009 developed the country’s first independently mass-produced variable air volume (VAV) control system for laboratories, which received positive market feedback.。
The founding team’s profound understanding of industry know-how, coupled with their exceptional ability to integrate ecosystem resources, has led Tian Shouhui, who has been immersed in the laboratory industry for over 15 years, to jokingly refer to himself as “the least senior member of the founding team.” Leveraging the resources of the founding team, Heluo Zhilian has established operational centers in eight provinces and municipalities, including Guangdong, Beijing, Shandong, Inner Mongolia, and Fujian, enabling it to provide customers with efficient and timely localized services.
In 2020, the construction of “New Infrastructure” gained momentum. Heluo Zhilian began seeking opportunities within this initiative to help laboratories optimize and upgrade their operations.Tian Shouhui Elaborates on His Understanding of New and Traditional Infrastructure from the Perspectives of Construction and OperationsFrom a construction perspective, traditional infrastructure emphasizes physical construction, highlighting laboratory hardware and equipment conditions, whereas “new infrastructure” focuses on aligning software and hardware facilities to lay the foundation for the intelligent and sustainable development of laboratories. From a technological perspective, new infrastructure places greater emphasis on the application of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, the industrial internet, and the Internet of Things.
Evolutionary Trends of Smart Laboratories
Heluo Zhilian believes that the smart laboratory sector has progressed through the traditional Laboratory 1.0 and informatization-driven Laboratory 2.0 stages, is currently in the intelligent Laboratory 3.0 phase, and will evolve toward the digital-intelligent Laboratory 4.0 era.
According to Tian Shouhui, traditional laboratories have only achieved point-specific intelligence, meaning that smart infrastructure is largely in place and vertical integration within specific scenarios has been accomplished, enabling intelligent experiences in individual use cases. A hallmark of the 2.0 stage is the penetration of internet and big data technologies, which monitor and manage laboratory operational processes, thereby enhancing the level of informatization services.
At the current stage of intelligent development, laboratories prioritize data fusion and the extraction of data value, making laboratory data and service sharing possible while providing data support for lean operational management. Digital intelligence represents the target development stage for Heluo Zhilian, wherein laboratory systems achieve autonomous learning and self-evolution, realizing the aggregation of all factors and intelligence across all scenarios to continuously generate value and benefits.
Smart Laboratory Full Lifecycle Services and Products
HeLuo Zhilian believes that the focus of smart laboratories lies in leveraging holistic coordination and digital operational concepts to support lean management and scientific operations in research, testing and inspection, as well as teaching and research activities.To this end, Heluo Zhilian has established a smart laboratory solution that provides full lifecycle value chain services across the dimensions of planning, construction, operation, and development.
After more than a year of exploration and trial-and-error, and based on an assessment of its own strengths and capabilities, Heluo Zhilian ultimately settled on an integrated full-stack hardware-software solution. “In terms of top-level design, we provide end-to-end lifecycle value chain services, spanning consulting and planning, hardware deployment, software services, system integration and implementation, and operations and maintenance upgrades. Following market research, we believe that ‘hardware should be matched to software capabilities, while software should unlock the potential of hardware,’ and that an integrated hardware-software solution can achieve a high-fidelity realization of design objectives.”
Heluo Zhilian has launched the SRBIOE, a smart operations platform for research buildings that is stable, reliable, secure, trustworthy, and fully self-developed, establishing a “1349” full-stack digital and intelligent solution for smart laboratories.
Blue Lotus: Architectural Diagram of the Smart Laboratory “1349” System
Tian Shouhui offered a vivid analogy for the “1349” product system: the Smart Laboratory 1349 framework is akin to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The “1” refers to the Helotus digital foundation, built on a technical underpinning of “basic platform + cloud-edge system infrastructure,” serving as the “foundation” dug hundreds of meters deep. The “3” represents the capability assurance for establishing innovative digital infrastructure, consolidating the basis for digital-intelligent operations, and pursuing a smart, low-carbon pathway; functioning as the most stable triangular structure, it acts as the “core tube.” The “4” denotes user values characterized by safety, stability, sustainability, and efficiency, which can be termed the “load-bearing walls.” The “9” comprises nine application services—smart interaction terminals, equipment and facility management, integrated security management, intelligent robotics, informational collaborative management, security operation supervision, energy consumption and efficiency management, environmental space management, and digital laboratory solutions—corresponding to functional modules such as equipment, facilities, decoration and fitting-out, water, electricity, gas, and heating. Together, these elements construct a towering digital-intelligent research skyscraper reaching into the clouds.
Heluo Zhilian integrates cutting-edge digital and intelligent technologies—including IT, IoT, AI, ICT, digital twins, big data, and cloud computing—to merge the physical and digital spaces of laboratories. By extracting, organizing, analyzing, and applying data centered on the six elements of quality management theory (“personnel, equipment, materials, methods, environment, and measurement”), it constructs a laboratory digital-intelligent entity with manageable, controllable, and visual user-friendly interactions. This system continuously ensures the safe, stable, green, and efficient operation of research facilities, helping operators and managers establish future-oriented smart operational models. It achieves overall “intelligence, wisdom, and connectivity” for research buildings, effectively optimizing resource allocation, enhancing research quality and efficiency, and comprehensively advancing scientific research endeavors.
Panoramic View of the Smart Laboratory
In terms of product standardization, Heluo Zhilian’s strategy is to pursue granularity, precision, and scale., that is, by implementing solutions across a wide range of scenarios, we reverse-engineer core standardized products, refine our middle-platform capabilities, and build a robust application marketplace. “Our middle-platform capabilities are derived from nearly one hundred laboratories with diverse attributes and summarized from hundreds of different scenarios. Product standardization is not defined by us, nor is it determined by one or two customers; rather, it is consolidated through substantial data samples and the genuine choices of customers. Only in this way do commonalities hold meaningful value.”
Heluo Zhilian is currently atSmart Development in Public Health and Pharmaceutical Enterprise LaboratoriesThe company has also made strategic investments, participating in the smart construction projects for the new drug R&D laboratory building of a listed pharmaceutical enterprise and the laboratory building of a Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Heluo Zhilian was involved throughout the entire process, from advisory consulting and planning design to project implementation, delivery, and subsequent operations. Working closely with the owner and the general contractor, the company conducted needs assessments, customized functional modules, and deployed nine major system solutions for the smart operation platform of scientific research buildings, encompassing 56 business processes and over 100 functional applications.
“Delivering typical projects yields not only project experience and client case studies, but more importantly, a profound understanding of the unique scenarios and customer needs in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. ‘Our team members not only understand why we do things a certain way, but also how we can do them better in the future. Solutions and technical measures addressing issues such as data compliance, metadata and raw data traceability and verification, real-time dynamic monitoring of controlled environments with assurance of steady-state operation, remote monitoring and anomaly early warning for experimental processes, as well as stringent and meticulous personnel access control and confidentiality mechanisms, constitute valuable assets accumulated by the HeLuo Zhilian team. These form the support and underlying logic that enable us to achieve stable and long-term success in the smart laboratory sector,’ said Tian Shouhui.”
Tian Shouhui remarked that Heluo Zhilian, rooted in the Greater Bay Area—one of China’s most advanced regions for industrial chains and clusters—is a beneficiary of the times and aspires to become an enabler of urban scientific and technological innovation speed. As a value-driven enterprise, Heluo Zhilian leverages its deep understanding of the smart laboratory industry, continuously learning from and integrating advanced concepts and technologies from academia and industry to transform insights into capabilities. It empowers research institutions through an “iron triangle” of products, services, and ecosystem. “We would rather move slowly but steadily, so that we can go further.”
In 2022, Heluo Zhilian will focus on project implementation, strengthen its systematic capabilities, address gaps, and clarify work related to market strategy, channel development, technological accumulation, and business model validation. By streamlining operations, the company aims to make its overall capabilities replicable and scalable.
Looking ahead, Heluo Zhilian will adhere to its internally formulated "Three Five-Year Plans," continuously building an integrated hardware-software product architecture and strengthening its technical capabilities. By leveraging a digital platform to provide operation and maintenance services, the company aims to become an indispensable partner for research institutions, collaborating with ecosystem partners through managed operations to realize the digitalization and intelligence of laboratory scenarios.