Red Hat Celebrates KOSTAL, ERGO China Life Insurance, Procter & Gamble, and HSBC Bank for Driving Open Source Excellence at the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025 for China

Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the winners of the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025 for China. This year, Red Hat is celebrating KOSTAL Group, ERGO China Life Insurance, Procter & Gamble (China) Ltd, and HSBC Bank (China) Company Limited for their forward thinking use of open source to drive innovation, enable transformation and create meaningful impact across their organizations.

At the heart of AI adoption in 2025, organizations across Asia Pacific are moving decisively beyond experimentation to focus on measurable business impact. Research from International Data Corporation (IDC), sponsored by Red Hat and Intel, forecasts that by 2030, AI will generate $19.9 trillion in global economic value, contributing 3.5% of global GDP. Much of this growth will come from enterprises that embed AI into their operations to optimize processes and open new opportunities. With experimentation giving way to full-scale AI adoption, the differentiator will be how organizations harness open source to unlock AI’s full potential, driving agility, scalability, and sustainable value. Smaller, open source models tailored for local contexts and business needs are also emerging to bridge today’s capabilities with tomorrow’s possibilities while amplifying human expertise.

Embodying this year’s theme, “Unlock what’s next,” the Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025 celebrates customers turning these trends into tangible results. The awards recognize 30 winners across the region whose inventive use of Red Hat’s open source technologies has sparked innovation, strengthened competitiveness, and delivered lasting value for their industries, customers, and employees. These organizations demonstrate how open source empowers enterprises to reimagine possibilities, navigate complexity, and seize new opportunities in an evolving landscape to define future competitiveness.

The awards comprise five categories: Digital Transformation, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Cloud-native Development, Automation – and the newly added AI and Emerging Tech.

Category: Digital Transformation and Cloud-Native Development

Winner: KOSTAL (Shanghai) Management Co., Ltd.

KOSTAL (Shanghai) Management Co., Ltd., the Asian headquarters and one of the global R&D centers of the KOSTAL Group, provides comprehensive solutions for automotive electrical systems, industrial electrical systems, connectors, and testing equipment. In 2025, KOSTAL (Shanghai) ranked 98th among Shanghai’s Top 100 Enterprises and 36th among the Top 100 Manufacturing Enterprises. As the need for production line digitalization continues to grow, the company embarked on building a cloud platform capable of processing massive amounts of data, establishing a solid foundation for its digital transformation journey.

To achieve this, KOSTAL adopted Red Hat’s enterprise-grade open source solutions to build a secure and reliable data platform. This platform not only enables better integration of existing systems, but also drives digitalization, improves production efficiency, and lays a solid foundation for AI applications. By introducing a consistent and scalable cloud-native architecture, KOSTAL has significantly enhanced system availability, accelerated service delivery, and advanced its digital transformation journey—contributing to the continued innovation of China’s automotive industry.

Category: AI & Emerging Tech and Cloud-Native Development

Winner: ERGO China Life Insurance

ERGO China Life Insurance, the first nationwide life insurance legal entity headquartered in Shandong, It was jointly established by Shandong State-owned Assets Investment Holdings Co., Ltd., ERGO Group AG (hereinafter referred to as “ERGO Group”), and ERGO Lebensversicherung AG. In recent years, ERGO China Life Insurance has leveraged the technological expertise of its German shareholder, ERGO Group, to advance its digital transformation. In 2024, it built an AI computing platform, deploying intelligent agents, smart contact assistants, AI-powered customer service, intelligent quality inspection, and AI coding assistants across sales, customer service, risk management, and software development, injecting intelligence into the entire business chain.

In 2025, the company launched a unified AI platform. Using Red Hat’s cloud-native solutions, it achieved intelligent GPU resource scheduling, centralization, and shared optimization, accelerating AI deployment across business units. With AI at its core, ERGO China Life Insurance is driving high-quality growth and building a digital operating model of “precision marketing – intelligent service – ecosystem collaboration,” while continuously enhancing the customer experience.

Category: Automation

Winner: Guangzhou Procter & Gamble (P&G) Technology Innovation Co., Ltd

Procter & Gamble, founded in 1837, is one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies and a Fortune Global 500 company. In 1988, P&G established its first joint venture in China, Guangzhou P&G Co., Ltd., and entered the Chinese market with its first brand, Head & Shoulders, aiming to provide Chinese consumers with high-quality brands and services to make life better.

By adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux, P&G has streamlined infrastructure management, reduced manual intervention, and created a more consistent, secure environment for application delivery. The result is faster system deployment, improved stability, and stronger operational support — enabling teams to focus on innovation and delivering enhanced digital experiences for customers. This automation-led transformation shows how P&G is harnessing open source to boost efficiency and support long-term business growth in the highly competitive consumer goods industry.

Category: Automation

Winner: HSBC Bank (China) Company Limited

As one of the largest international banks operating in mainland China, HSBC Bank (China) Company Limited provides a wide range of financial services to individuals, businesses, and institutions. With nearly 100 branches across the country and a workforce of more than 95% local talent, HSBC China continues to strengthen its position as a trusted financial partner in the region.

To enhance security, stability, and responsiveness, the bank has embraced automation to modernize its development and operations. By reducing manual effort and streamlining processes, automation has enabled HSBC China to move faster, lower risks, and ensure more reliable services for customers. Supported by Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform and its open source expertise, this initiative is helping HSBC China enhance operational efficiency while building a stronger, more agile foundation for future growth.

Supporting Quotes

Marjet Andriesse, senior vice president and general manager, APJC, Red Hat

“The pace of change in Asia Pacific shows no signs of slowing, especially as AI becomes a core driver of business transformation. Despite these demands, our customers have delivered remarkable results, showing that innovation thrives when paired with open source. The Red Hat APAC Innovation Awards 2025 are an opportune time to recognize and celebrate these achievements, highlighting how our customers are unlocking what’s next and shaping a future defined by creativity, resilience, and impact.”

Zhou Min, Head of the Information Technology Department, KOSTAL Group
“At KOSTAL, building a secure and reliable private cloud is essential for ensuring smooth business operations and sustainable growth. Through our collaboration with Red Hat, we accelerated the deployment of key systems, established a solid foundation for processing large volumes of production data and implementing intelligent projects, and laid the groundwork for applying AI technologies based on private domain data.

Dou Yonggang, Manager, IT, ERGO China Life Insurance
“By working with Red Hat, we have built a unified AI platform that centralizes GPU resources. This has not only significantly improved utilization and reduced hardware costs, but also enabled more business units to benefit from AI. This project has already enhanced the daily work of over 200 employees, and we believe it will continue to strengthen our ability to deliver new, AI-driven experiences for customers across China.”

Zhao Xu, IT Director, Procter & Gamble (P&G) Technology Innovation Co., Ltd
“Automation has been key to strengthening the reliability and efficiency of our IT operations. By working with Red Hat, we have been able to simplify infrastructure management, accelerate system deployment, and reduce risks tied to manual processes, all while delivering a smoother user experience. This journey has also encouraged more collaboration and innovation through open source practices, helping us build a stronger foundation for P&G’s digital future.”

Hu Wen Hao, Vice President, HSBC Bank (China) Company Limited
“Strengthening security and stability is critical for a bank of our scale, and automation has allowed us to achieve this with greater speed and precision. Automated upgrades and patching reduce risk while boosting efficiency, giving our teams more confidence to support the business and our customers. At the same time, we believe that open source technologies and collaboration can raise the bar for the entire financial services industry in China, driving shared innovation and resilience.”