R&D center of CRRC Sifang was founded in 1996, authorized as municipal enterprise technical center of Qingdao in 1997, as provincial-level enterprise technical center of Shandong province in 1999, and as state-level enterprise technical center in December 2002.

The R&D center mainly undertakes engineering design work and research and development of research products and market products, such as high-speed EMUs, railway passenger cars and other urban rail passenger cars.

The R&D center has a professionally skilled, dynamic and innovative R&D team with seven development departments concerned with overall systems, carbody, bogie, electrical product, mechanical product, car interior and exterior product.

Based on IRISE system, product research and development of R&D center has established an improved design process and review system with control phases of proposal design, technical design, construction design and test verification, formed product development mode with organic integration and mutual verification of simulation calculation, bench test and line test data, with integration capabilities for various types of rail train system and design capabilities for carbody and bogie.