Page 171 - How China Is Winning the Tech Race

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and help solve the nation’s energy problem. China is the second-largest
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energy-consuming nation after the United States but is home to 20 percent of
the world’s population. By 2015, savings from this Chinese lighting initiative
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could equal the output of the country’s massive Three Gorges hydroelectric
project, according to Wu Ling, the director of the national project. 10
Globally, the LED market is set to double in size to $12.3 billion by 2012,
up from $6.1 billion in 2007. 11 Today, LEDs are found most commonly in
traffic lights, mobile phones, digital cameras, automotive interiors, taillights,
and flashlights, soon to be followed by airplane cabins. LEDs also are
replacing neon lights in outdoor advertising signs such as those in New York’s
Times Square, including a seven-story LED screen that wraps around
Nasdaq’s headquarters. It is estimated that by 2012 LEDs will account for 10
percent of the $1.8 billion lighting market in homes and offices, up from only
$100 million in 2007. 12
LEDs can decrease the amount of electricity used in lighting by more than
50 percent and reduce carbon emissions by more than 10 percent. 13
Compared with the average lightbulb, an LED bulb uses half the electricity
and shines for a far longer time—even years—before burning out. The only
drawback is the price: A 9.2-watt LED bulb costs $65. Jiang’s research, if suc-
cessful commercially, will lower prices significantly and could put LED
lightbulbs in billions of lamps worldwide.
I recall my father, a professor of history at Ohio University, telling me that
whoever invented a long-lasting, cool electric lightbulb would be a mil-
lionaire. I am sure he would be surprised to hear that this breakthrough is
coming from a country where some
rural people don’t have reliable
electricity and from a city outside
the major commercial centers. “If it’s true that they can make LEDs on
Despite Jiang’s efforts to keep a silicon, this is really a breakthrough. This is
low profile, he is known increas- the holy grail.”
ingly in high-tech circles in China
Jagdish Rebello,
and worldwide. Jiang has hit on a
technology analyst, iSuppli Corp.
highly efficient way of making
light-emitting diodes by using the
commodity silicon, which is found
in computers, cell phones, and digital cameras. This is breakthrough research,

LatticePower Corporation—China Lights Up the Globe 145