Major achievements emerge in a race to ignite a "new engine" for economic development

In the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", China's major scientific and technological achievements have emerged, and the innovation ability has continued to improve. At the same time, the reform of China's scientific and technological system and mechanism has been accelerated, and the innovation with enterprises as the main body has accelerated, empowering the real economy and drawing a strong background for high-quality economic development. Looking forward to the future, around the key core technology research, strengthen the national strategic scientific and technological strength, strengthen the main position of enterprise innovation, more scientific and technological policies will be accelerated.

Basic scientific research is the foundation

Major scientific and technological achievements continue to emerge

About 378 million kilometers away from the earth, "Tianwen-1" successfully "fell into flames". As of December 1, China's first Mars rover, Zhu Rong, has been working on the surface of Mars for more than 190 Martian days, with a cumulative driving of more than 1200 meters and about 10GB of raw scientific data for inspection and exploration.

It's a microcosm. In the first year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", in many fields, China's major scientific and technological achievements have emerged, and the innovation ability has continued to improve, and it has made great strides forward in the new journey of realizing scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement:

The era of "day-finding" has begun. On October 14, the Long March 2 Ding rocket carrying China's first solar exploration science and technology test satellite "Xihe" was successfully launched at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.

The "artificial sun" continues to "burn". On May 28, the fully superconducting tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device continued to "burn" for 101 seconds at a temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius, extending the original world record of 100 million degrees Celsius and 20 seconds by five times.

Quantum computing upgrade. The "Zuchong-2" superconducting quantum computing prototype processed the "quantum random line sampling" problem more than 10 million times faster than the world's fastest supercomputer.

Behind the major scientific and technological innovation achievements is the rising level of basic research in China. On the morning of November 3, 2020, the 2020 National Science and Technology Awards selected 46 National Natural Science Awards, and many achievements reached the international leading level, and the first prize was a rare "Gemini Star", which became the best footnote to the continuous improvement of China's basic research level.

"Basic research capabilities are the source of national innovation vitality. The level of basic research determines the foundation and stamina of a country's scientific and technological innovation, and strong basic research is the premise and foundation for China to achieve scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement. Ye Yujiang, director of the Department of Basic Research of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said. The data shows that in 2020, the proportion of basic research investment in research and development funds exceeded 6% for the first time. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, this proportion is expected to reach more than 8%.

Enterprises become the main body of innovation

Scientific and technological progress empowers entities

According to the "Global Innovation Index Report 2021" released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China's comprehensive ranking of innovation capacity has risen to 12th in the world. From 5G to artificial intelligence, from the Internet of Things to robots, scientific and technological innovation and progress lead industrial upgrading, empower the real economy, and paint a strong background for the high-quality development of the opening year of the "14th Five-Year Plan".

The group of high-tech enterprises has gradually become the main force of scientific and technological innovation. "Compared with the traditional metal security detector, the active millimeter wave human body security detector we developed is more efficient and wider, as long as you walk into the glass door of the device, stay for just 1 second, the display immediately presents a human body image, and contraband such as metals, ceramics, powders, liquids and other contrabands are also clearly marked in circles of different colors, which is unobstructed, greatly improving the efficiency and accuracy of security inspection." Li Junting, technical operation director of Huaxun Ark Intelligent Information Technology Co., Ltd., a national high-tech enterprise, said that at present, this product has been put into use at Shenzhen Bao'an Airport.

Traditional enterprises also use scientific and technological innovation to drive transformation and upgrading. "Two out of every five smart water meter supporting batteries in China come from Yangtze River Technology." Li Wenjie, general manager of Wuhan Zhongyuan Yangtze River Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd., said. As of November 2021, Changjiang Technology has a supporting battery share of up to 40% in the domestic smart water meter market, and a 10% share in the smart Internet of Things market.

Li Wenjie said: "At the beginning of the establishment of Yangtze River Technology, it fully tapped its own research and development capabilities for the smart water meter and meter industry, and 262 horizontal research and development projects, 23 assembly new product projects, and 8 assembly quality projects paved the way for our products to truly enter 'thousands of households'. ”

The status of enterprise innovation as the main body is becoming increasingly prominent. The national high-tech zone group, which is dominated by high-tech enterprises, has further expanded and become an important support and growth pole for the development of the national economy. The latest data show that from January to August this year, 169 national high-tech zones achieved operating income of 29.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 21.9% year-on-year.

"At present, Zhangjiang High-tech Zone has gathered more than 100,000 science and technology enterprises, more than 9,000 high-tech enterprises, and the output value of strategic emerging industries accounts for more than 60% of the city." Artificial intelligence, biomedicine, the rapid development of emerging industries, online new economy and other new formats have accelerated their rise. The relevant person in charge of the management committee of Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Industrial Development Zone said.

Hard tricks are introduced

Stimulate the vitality of science and technology

From the new version of the comprehensive evaluation index system of the national high-tech zone, to the "Several Measures to Support Female Scientific and Technological Talents to Play a Greater Role in Scientific and Technological Innovation", to the "Several Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Reforming and Improving the Management of Central Financial Scientific Research Funds", in 2021, many important documents were released, outlining the roadmap for the deepening of the reform of China's scientific and technological system and mechanism.

In particular, the official release of the "Guiding Opinions on Improving the Evaluation Mechanism of Scientific and Technological Achievements" has been made from improving the classification and evaluation system of scientific and technological achievements to accelerating the reform of the evaluation of national scientific and technological project achievements; from vigorously developing the market-oriented evaluation of scientific and technological achievements to reforming and improving the reward system for scientific and technological achievements. A series of hard tricks have been introduced to stimulate the vitality of scientific and technological innovation.

On November 15, the Beijing Stock Exchange officially opened. According to Kwun Kong Tao, Chairman of KPMG Asia Pacific and China, the Beijing Stock Exchange highlights "earlier, smaller and newer" – that is, paying attention to and serving small and medium-sized enterprises with small enterprise scale, high technology content and strong innovation ability earlier, and discovering "good seedlings" in advance.

Looking forward to the future, the reform of the scientific and technological system and mechanism will continue to be deepened. The Politburo of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on December 6 to analyze and study economic work in 2022. The meeting stressed that "science and technology policies should be accelerated, continue to grasp key core technology research, strengthen the national strategic scientific and technological strength, strengthen the main position of enterprise innovation, and achieve a virtuous cycle of science and technology, industry and finance."

Experts said that with the implementation of a series of new policies, the full play of new institutional mechanisms, including the role of the "baton" of scientific and technological achievement evaluation, will promote the deep integration of innovation chains, industrial chains and value chains, and provide strong support for building a new development pattern and achieving high-quality development. (Reporter Zhang Mo Zhongyuan)

Source: Economic Reference