At the bustling China Refrigeration Expo in Beijing this April, the most influential event in the HVAC industry, Midea Building Technologies centered its presence around the theme "Ecosystem Synergy, Quality and Efficiency Leap." Leveraging its comprehensive industry chain layout and digital technology expertise, the company showcased multi-scenario solutions for data centers and various industrial segments, alongside its core new MDV9 series product line. This presentation offered a full display of Midea Building Technologies' end-to-end service capabilities, spanning from equipment to systems, installation to operation and maintenance, and hardware to software. The highly anticipated launch of its building business ecosystem platform drew significant industry attention, marking not just a product release but a declaration of a manufacturing giant's deep foray into the building services sector.
This comprehensive service platform, capable of linking the entire chain from initial project investment planning and design, through product integration, engineering delivery, and commissioning, to later-stage operation, maintenance, energy efficiency optimization, carbon management, and asset value appreciation, addresses a critical gap in the current building services market. It points towards a profound transformation focused on efficiency and value within the building industry as it enters an era dominated by existing stock.
"The goal is to make building owners more at ease, help our partners be more profitable, and simplify the industry as a whole." This value proposition, mentioned by Yang Pengyu, Strategic Business General Manager and Director of Solutions and Delivery at Midea Building Technologies, serves as a fitting summary of the platform's purpose.
The shift from simply "selling equipment" to "building an ecosystem" comes as the domestic HVAC industry, after two decades of rapid expansion fueled by new construction, confronts the reality of a maturing market focused on existing buildings. According to data from Aiken, the Chinese central air conditioning market experienced a significant decline of 17.1% in 2025, marking the second consecutive year of contraction. In contrast, the market for existing buildings, representing a stock accumulated from 2007 to 2016, reached a scale of 539.5 billion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 10.8%.
Against this challenging backdrop of fading industry growth, Midea Building Technologies has achieved standout performance, reporting total revenue of 35.8 billion yuan in 2025—a growth rate of 25.7% that far exceeded market expectations and solidified its leading industry position. This counter-trend growth is underpinned by the company's development of a proven industrial ecosystem with clear contractual logic, built upon its end-to-end capabilities.
In Yang Pengyu's view, Midea Building Technologies' role within this ecosystem platform transcends that of a traditional equipment supplier; it acts as an organizer and collaborator within the building industry chain. As the core of this ecosystem, its fundamental value lies in integrating disparate resources and capabilities, serving different types of partners through a tiered mechanism. On one hand, it provides business opportunities and capability support for small and medium-sized partners, enabling them to focus on niche segments. On the other, it empowers design and consulting firms with digital tools, allowing them to expand their services from pure design to comprehensive solutions. Simultaneously, through capability complementarity and business model innovation, it also supports energy, power companies, and financial institutions, helping to move projects from technical implementation to a closed-loop value realization.
The realization of this ecosystem platform is supported by Midea's inherent strengths. The first is its deep accumulation in hardware. According to Aiken's "2025 China Central Air Conditioning Market Report," Midea ranks in the top tier with sales exceeding 20 billion yuan, holding leading positions in the engineering project market and in markets for centrifugal chillers, screw chillers, and modular units. In an interview, Yang Pengyu revealed to Aiken that Midea Building Technologies currently has online data from nearly 3 million indoor units and thousands of chillers. This data is used for internal research and development and is also shared with partners and research institutions for higher-level business innovation.
Secondly, there is the continuous iteration of its digital platform. After years of refinement, Midea's iBUILDING digital platform has matured from concept to practical application. The platform's value extends beyond simple device connectivity and data collection to encompass capabilities throughout the entire building lifecycle: front-end visual simulation, mid-term interconnection of devices and data, and back-end functions like fault diagnosis, load optimization, and energy management powered by AI algorithms.
Notably, the deep application of AI technology is a key enabler for the ecosystem platform. AI permeates every stage, from auxiliary design packages in design tools, to localized optimization in control strategies, and comparative analysis of external weather, foot traffic data, and actual loads. Leveraging the extensive digital transformation experience accumulated by the Midea Group over decades, and collaborating with internal resources like Midea Cloud Intelligence, the Software Engineering Academy, and the AI Research Institute, the platform's process re-engineering capabilities for enterprise-level scenarios are now being externalized.
On the business model front, Midea Building Technologies has established a diversified service qualification system, including MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing) general contracting qualifications, Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) investment qualifications, and intelligent system qualifications. This allows it to act as a guarantor in different projects. For instance, in a major Shanghai commercial project where an energy station was retrofitted in 2022, annual savings of approximately 3 to 4 million yuan were achieved compared to the 2019 combined electricity and gas costs of nearly 7 million yuan. At the Zhoushan Changhong Shipyard air compressor station project, Midea employed an EMC model, providing high-efficiency equipment and an intelligent group control system with zero initial customer investment, sharing the resulting energy savings. Furthermore, Midea developed an AI-powered smart energy management platform for the Jingzhou First People's Hospital, projected to achieve HVAC system energy savings exceeding 45% and overall energy savings over 15% post-retrofit. These cases not only validate the technical solutions but also demonstrate the viability of results-guaranteed business models.
Within the collaborative framework of the ecosystem platform, Midea Building Technologies has clearly defined the roles and value propositions for various partners. Instead of simply pooling resources, the approach focuses on capability restructuring for synergistic effects: smaller partners enhance efficiency in specialized areas, design firms strengthen their solution extension capabilities, large energy platforms fill technical gaps on the building side, and financial institutions participate based on clear data and return models. This differentiated collaboration mechanism enables the platform to not only integrate resources but also advance building services from fragmented supply towards systematic and closed-loop operations.
This hierarchical division essentially reduces intermediate links in the building service chain, creating a closed-loop value chain across the entire lifecycle. Taking high-efficiency plant rooms as an example, under traditional delivery models, HVAC, electrical, low-current, and control disciplines often work in silos, resulting in a "patched-together" system for the end-user. Under the ecosystem platform model, Midea Building Technologies, as the provider of methodology and standards, brings together partners from design consulting, software control, and AI algorithm fields for joint development and delivery, ultimately contractually locking in energy efficiency indicators as the delivery standard.
Crucially, the ecosystem platform incorporates mechanisms for responsibility definition and risk sharing. For the end-user, it provides a single point of accountability. Midea Building Technologies, with its full-chain qualifications, can independently assume this role in some projects, while in others, it partners with third parties, creating a dual guarantee of "specialized equipment technology plus mature spatial operation." This flexible organizational structure, combined with innovative business models like energy outsourcing and EPC, effectively mitigates the financial and technical risks faced by owners of existing buildings.
Currently, China's construction industry is fully entering a critical period focused on improving the quality of existing building stock and transitioning towards green, low-carbon development. As a major contributor to energy consumption and carbon emissions, enhancing building energy efficiency and implementing low-carbon retrofits have become core drivers for high-quality industrial development. As corporate demand shifts from "single equipment" to "full-lifecycle integrated services," the building climate control sector is rapidly evolving towards lifecycle management, scenario-based customization, and systematic integration. The launch of Midea's building business ecosystem platform is a microcosm of this transition: a move from single-point technological innovation to system-level ecosystem construction. For Midea Building Technologies, this represents not merely a business upgrade, but a long-term strategic investment in the future of the industry.