Three college students start up from a 10㎡ lab — building an electrical giant worth nearly 150 billion.

China’s State Grid Corporation has announced plans to invest RMB 4 trillion during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, igniting strong investor interest in the power equipment sector. One of the biggest beneficiaries is Sieyuan Electric, a leading private electrical equipment manufacturer.

In mid-January, Sieyuan Electric hit the daily limit for two consecutive trading sessions, briefly pushing its market capitalization close to RMB 160 billion. The rally was driven by both policy momentum and fundamentals. As a key supplier to State Grid, Sieyuan stands to benefit directly from infrastructure expansion. Meanwhile, its 2025 preliminary results showed revenue rising 37.2% year-on-year to RMB 21.2 billion, while net profit surged 54.3% to RMB 3.16 billion—both record highs.

Sieyuan’s rise is a textbook case of China’s private industrial champions. Founded in 1991 by three electrical engineering graduates with just RMB 62,000 and a 10-square-meter lab, the company initially focused on lightning arrester monitoring—an underserved niche ripe for domestic substitution. Over time, it expanded through R&D and acquisitions into breakers, transformers, GIS systems, and other high-voltage equipment, listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2004.

A key inflection point was its deep integration into the State Grid supply chain. By offering early products for trial use and later securing large-scale bids, Sieyuan gradually built a comprehensive product portfolio and became one of the few private firms with full-spectrum power equipment capabilities.

In recent years, overseas expansion has emerged as a second growth engine. Driven by AI data centers and tightening global power infrastructure, demand for electrical equipment has entered a new upcycle. Goldman Sachs’ report Powering the AI Era forecasts that global data center power demand could rise 160% by 2030, making power systems a major bottleneck for AI growth.

Sieyuan has capitalized on this trend with fast transformer delivery cycles and broad international certifications, enabling it to penetrate European and U.S. markets. Its 2018 acquisition of Toshiba Changzhou Transformer marked a turning point, accelerating its global footprint. Overseas revenue now accounts for more than one-third of total sales, with growth far outpacing domestic business.

With strong domestic demand from State Grid and structural global opportunities from AI-driven power investment, Sieyuan Electric is entering a rare “super cycle.” Whether it can continue expanding overseas amid intensifying competition from state-owned and global players will determine its long-term position in the global power equipment industry.