CDF Voice | Jennifer Scanlon, President and CEO, UL Solutions

On behalf of my 15,000 worldwide colleagues, I want to express our appreciation for the invitation to join CDF once again this year.

UL Solutions were founded in 1894 with a mission to promote safe living and working environments. Today, we provide Testing, Inspection and Certification Services, along with complementary Software and Advisory offerings, to support our customers in 35 different industries. These efforts have led to the trusted and instantly recognizable UL mark being emblazoned on billions of products worldwide.

We are science-based, standards-based problem-solvers who work with customers of all sizes — including small- and medium-sized enterprises — on safe innovations to help them gain access to markets around the globe. Our thousands of scientists, engineers, regulatory experts, and others are deeply committed to our safety-science mission.

While we are headquartered near Chicago, Illinois, we have been working in China for nearly half a century to help spur innovation and protect consumers. Our joint-venture partnership with China Certification and Inspection Group, or CCIC, launched decades ago, and our shared focus on safety and performance continues to serve us both well as we seek to enable high-quality development in China, and our customers seek to navigate market complexities.

China has recognized the TIC sector’s vital role in driving innovation and safety for nearly a decade by classifying ours as a high-tech services industry — a message reinforced by Premier Li at last year’s CDF.

In addition to helping promising innovations get to market quickly and safely, our focus on science-based, technology-neutral standards supports innovation by enabling companies to satisfy requirements through a variety of related technologies. Standards informed by applied safety science R&D are essential.

While human health and safety have always been our primary focus, the dawning of a new era in artificial intelligence, the need to consider cybersecurity more fully, and the global drive for sustainability are newer areas where our customers are seeking our support to address different safety and security considerations.

To that end, late last year, we introduced groundbreaking rating programs for devices incorporating artificial intelligence to help businesses and consumers make informed decisions about adopting and using these products.· Our AI Model Transparency Benchmark and User Data Privacy Claim programs are the first of their kinds. And it was a global company headquartered in China — Lenovo — that first achieved our AI Model Transparency Diamond rating in 2024.

· In addition, UL Solutions recently completed an AI Safety Outline of Investigation, or OOI — a comprehensive framework that defines the requirements, guidelines and procedures needed to ensure AI applications align with the highest standards of safety, regulations and industry best practices. This OOI will be the cornerstone of our work to certify AI-enabled products for customers in the future.

Finally, global advances in science and innovation depend, in part, on shared principles or tenets. I want to highlight just a few key points we see as essential to understanding our role and the challenges at hand.

The first is that innovation is a complex endeavor that requires an ecosystem of expertise, ingenuity and entrepreneurial thinking to win. Regulators, scientists, business leaders, and other experts all have a significant role to play.

We see effective public- and private-sector partnerships — including the CDF, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum and Climate COP — as opportunities for dialogue and collaboration, and we value our engagement with these important groups.

And when it comes to acute safety risks with wide-ranging implications, UL Solutions excels at assembling the right players and partnering with governments to mitigate risks and protect people, which is why we at UL Solutions pride ourselves on being an “enabler of innovation ecosystems.”

The second point I want to make is that there’s no way to talk about accelerating innovation without mentioning the importance of IP enforcement. China has advanced its anti-counterfeiting efforts over the past decade, and by working with CCIC and with China Customs, we’ve seen the seizure of millions of non-compliant products that pose safety risks to consumers and erode market share for those who deliver compliant products. We are eager to see these enforcement efforts continue.

The final point to bear in mind, alongside the importance of ecosystems and IP protection, is that safety in innovation actually enables high-quality development and growth, in part by mitigating the risks of unintended consequences that can lead to loss of life and property and exhaust limited resources.

In closing, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the CDF for this opportunity to highlight the role UL Solutions and the TIC industry play in enabling safer innovation that seeds growth and prosperity in China and around the world.

We welcome continuing the dialogue and identifying opportunities for connection and collaboration that this forum offers.

Thank you.

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