A tough start

After studying and working in the United States and Germany, Zhou returned to China in 2002. He was disappointed to discover that the country's labs were almost completely dependent on imported mass spectrometers.

In response, he decided to develop Chinese-made mass spectrometers. In 2004, he founded Guangzhou Hexin Instrument Co, starting with just five staff members in a 50-square-meter lab.

"We really struggled at first because it was very hard to secure investment. Very few investors understood the technology's potential and it required a long development cycle, which meant it was impossible to make a quick profit," Zhou said.

Another difficulty was that some electronic components and mechanical parts failed to meet the stiff requirements.

"The mass spectrometer is the embodiment of advanced manufacturing - it has more than 800 different components and requires techniques of multiple disciplines. Sometimes we had to spend time training upstream companies to obtain precision components," Zhou said.