Text | Zhang Jiaru

Zhejiang Businesspeople, the most profitable group in China. Over the years, Zhejiang entrepreneurs have consistently ranked first in the Hurun Rich List. In 2022, Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce underwent a leadership change, with Nan Cunhui succeeding Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, as the new president, attracting widespread attention.

Many people were curious at the time: Who is Nan Cunhui? Compared to the well-known Jack Ma, Nan Cunhui appears extremely low-profile, but he is a representative of grassroots entrepreneurship among Zhejiang businesspeople.

Nan Cunhui was born in a poor rural area of Yueqing, Wenzhou, Zhejiang. At 13, he was forced to drop out of school to repair shoes and support his family. During shoe repair, he discovered a business opportunity and decided to switch to entrepreneurship. In 1984, he mortgaged his family’s old house and, with a primary school classmate, started the “Qiu Jing Switch Factory,” which later became Chint Electric.

Over more than forty years, the small rural factory has grown into a leading domestic electrical equipment company, with low-voltage electrical appliances ranking first in sales volume and market share for ten consecutive years.

Recently, amid the booming market concept of “raising lobsters,” Chint Electric experienced a surge in the secondary market, with its stock price reaching a nearly four-year high. On March 13, the closing market value was 82.37 billion yuan.

From a small rural factory to an industry leader with a market value of 80 billion yuan, what has Chint Electric gone through?

3 Key Decisions: From Shoe Repairer to Wenzhou Entrepreneur Idol

1984 was a significant year in Chinese business history. That year, Zhang Ruimin took over the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory on the brink of bankruptcy and built Haier Group with a hammer; Liu Chuanzhi started from a communication room at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and founded Lenovo.

Also in that year, 21-year-old Nan Cunhui and his primary school classmates hung a sign reading “Qiu Jing Switch Factory” at the entrance of a simple workshop.

For Nan Cunhui, this was not just entrepreneurship but a breakthrough in fate. When he was 13, his father lost his ability to work, forcing him to drop out of school and repair shoes to support the family.

During several years of shoe repair, Nan Cunhui was very meticulous. He noticed that some customers’ shoes wore out very quickly. After inquiring, he learned these were “supply and marketing agents” who sold low-voltage electrical appliances across the country, earning about 1,000 yuan per round trip.

Compared to the livelihood business of shoe repair, selling low-voltage electrical appliances was risky but clearly more promising. So, Nan Cunhui repaired shoes by day and self-studied the disassembly and assembly of low-voltage switches at night. Later, he and a few others set up a small workshop.

After a month of early mornings and late nights, the workshop earned only 35 yuan, and his friends were discouraged and left one after another.

But Nan Cunhui remained optimistic—after all, he had earned something. In 1984, he and his primary school classmate invested all their savings to establish a formal “Qiu Jing Switch Factory.” The sign was hung up, but then came his second major decision.

At that time, the local market was chaotic, with frequent counterfeit and inferior products. Should Nan Cunhui follow the trend to seize the market or focus on quality to build reputation?

Years of shoe repair experience reminded him that good reputation attracts repeat customers; a one-time sale cannot go far. Therefore, from the beginning, Nan Cunhui decided to focus on quality.

To do this, he took a 24-hour boat trip to Shanghai, carrying his luggage, to find a retired engineer from the People’s Electric Appliance Factory, hoping he could help ensure product quality. Initially, the engineer refused, but Nan Cunhui slept on the engineer’s living room floor. Eventually, the engineer was moved by his sincerity.

This quality awareness laid the groundwork for Chint Electric’s future breakthroughs.

Around 1990, authorities launched a crackdown on counterfeit electrical appliances. Reports indicated that nearly 3,000 workshops and storefronts were shut down overnight. Those companies with excellent product quality received policy support, including Nan Cunhui’s “Qiu Jing Switch Factory.”

Nan Cunhui’s broader vision was yet to come. Around 1997, while most Wenzhou private enterprises remained in family-run “father-and-son” or “brotherly” models, he actively promoted shareholding reforms. He proposed “diluting personal shares with family equity, diluting family equity with social capital, and diluting monetary capital with knowledge capital.”

The goal was to break the closed system, attract talent, and build a modern enterprise capable of competing with international giants. Over a decade later, this decision proved its worth.

In the early 1990s, a multinational electrical giant attempted multiple acquisitions of Chint Electric. After being rejected, it sued for patent infringement and threatened: “If you don’t be our friend, then we’ll be your enemy.” Nan Cunhui remained calm, relying on continuous technological accumulation and talent-driven independent innovation. Over the next decade, Chint Electric counter-sued and won 1.6 billion yuan in compensation.

By 2001, local Wenzhou newspapers conducted a large survey—who is the idol of Wenzhou youth? Nan Cunhui was elected with a high vote count.

From a shoe repairer to an industrial idol, Nan Cunhui’s success was not luck but choosing the more difficult yet correct path at three critical crossroads.

“Raising Lobsters” Ignites Why It Boosts Chint Electric

Nan Cunhui is very low-profile personally. It wasn’t until 2022, when he succeeded as president of the Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce, that the outside world widely paid attention to his entrepreneurial story. At that time, Chint Electric had already established two major sectors: smart electrical appliances and green energy, with annual revenue of 46 billion yuan.

In fact, Chint Electric’s “breakout” happened half a year earlier than Nan Cunhui’s rise.

In the second half of 2021, Chint Electric’s market value once exceeded 1 trillion yuan, becoming Wenzhou’s first A-share listed company with a market cap over 1 trillion. At that time, the “dual carbon” policy and the promotion of distributed photovoltaic systems across entire counties caused the company’s valuation to shift from traditional manufacturing to a new energy operator.

Four years later, Chint Electric’s stock price rose again, with a total market value of 82.37 billion yuan on March 13. This time, the boost was not from photovoltaics but from the wave of AI computing infrastructure.

The trigger was the surge in “raising lobsters.” “Lobster” is a homophone for “OpenClaw,” referring to a new generation of AI agents capable of autonomous thinking and tool use. Their operation requires massive computing power, which in turn spurred demand for data center power infrastructure.

Transformers are the “heart” of power systems, responsible for safely and efficiently converting high-voltage grid electricity into low-voltage power usable by servers. Without stable and reliable transformers, even the strongest AI can only “fail.”

Chint Electric is a major global supplier of transformers, with four decades of technical accumulation since Nan Cunhui’s startup. Since 2025, the company has focused on new power systems, data centers, and other fields, developing intelligent distribution, power electronics, and other specialized products.

Deep technical expertise and forward-looking deployment have allowed Chint Electric to benefit from the AI “lobster” wave.

Recently, Nan Cunhui publicly stated that the global surge in AI computing power construction has made transformers scarce. “Last year, our transformer exports increased by 71.4% year-on-year, and factory orders are booked until 2027.”

The half-year 2025 report shows that Chint Electric has served top domestic companies like Alibaba and ByteDance with computing center projects, and has established overseas projects in U.S. data centers and Mexican industrial parks, achieving breakthroughs in benchmark projects in data centers and related fields.

In addition to transformers, Chint Electric has built an integrated industrial chain covering “power generation, storage, transmission, transformation, distribution, and consumption.” This integrated capability gives it a unique cost and competitive advantage amid the “computing power infrastructure” wave.

To expand into international markets, Chint Electric has initiated H-share listing plans, leveraging international capital to strengthen its layout in global electrical equipment and green energy sectors.

Over forty years ago, 13-year-old Nan Cunhui dropped out of school to repair shoes and support his family. Today, his company, Chint Electric, has become an essential “power backbone” for global AI data centers. He didn’t chase the trend, but Chint Electric stands at the forefront of the trend—this is not luck but decades of diligent internal strength.

As the AI wave surges and computing power continues to accelerate, whether Chint Electric can replicate its past trillion-yuan market value remains to be seen, depending on its ongoing performance in technological innovation, global market expansion, and industry chain collaboration. We will continue to watch.