CATL Chairman Donates $62.5 Million in Shares to Boost New Energy Battery Research at Shanghai Jiao Tong Institute

• The donation will go to a research institute established this year in Ningde, Fujian province, where CATL is headquartered.
• The institute focuses on research and talent development in new energy and other fields.

CATL (SZSE: 300750) chairman Robin Zeng donated 1.5 million shares in the company worth about 420 million yuan ($62.5 million) to Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Ningde institute for advanced study.

The donation ceremony took place on Thursday at the 2026 World Energy Storage Conference. The valuation is based on CATL's October 14 closing share price of 280.12 yuan on China's A-share market.

The donation will go to the research institute established this year in Ningde, Fujian province, where CATL is headquartered. Its research and talent development programs cover new energy batteries, photovoltaics, zero-carbon systems and electric transportation.

Formally named the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Fujian (Ningde) Advanced Research Institute, the institution was established in June 2026 by the Ningde municipal government, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the Fujian Provincial Department of Education and CATL.

The institute is not a branch or campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It draws on the university's research expertise and talent to conduct applied research, train students and commercialize research findings in Ningde.

The institute opened applications on October 10 for its 2027 graduate intake, with plans to enroll about 50 full-time students in professional master's degree programs, including 20 places under a dedicated CATL joint training program.

Students will complete their first year of coursework at Shanghai Jiao Tong University before moving to Ningde for research, jointly supervised by industry experts and university academics.

The institute's first phase, adjacent to CATL's 21C Lab, will have a total floor area of about 23,000 square meters and is scheduled to be ready for use in December 2027.

This is not the first share donation by a CATL executive to a university. In May 2025, the company disclosed that vice chairman Li Ping and his wife, Liao Mei, had signed an agreement to donate 4.05 million CATL shares to their shared alma mater, Fudan University.

That donation, valued at about 1 billion yuan at the time, was intended to establish the Fudan University Xuemin Natural Sciences Research Fund to support scientific research.

CATL remains the leader in the global EV battery market. Its battery installations totaled 333.0 GWh in the first 8 months of 2026, giving it a 39.4% market share, up from 37.7% a year earlier, according to South Korean market research firm SNE Research.