On April 25, the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference opened in Beijing, and ten major scientific and technological achievements were released. The construction plan of Zhongguancun world-leading science and technology park was released, the world's first fully analog optoelectronic intelligent computing chip was unveiled, a series of achievements in artificial intelligence were achieved, the quantum cloud computing power cluster was upgraded, and the first prototype of the 300 MW F-class heavy-duty gas turbine was assembled and rolled off the assembly line...... The ten major scientific and technological achievements not only demonstrate the current leading level in this field, but also inject strong momentum of scientific and technological innovation into the new quality productivity.
Major scientific and technological achievements I
The "Zhongguancun World-Leading Science and Technology Park Construction Plan (2024-2027)" was released
50 key tasks have been delineated
General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to the innovation and development of Zhongguancun and emphasizes the need to accelerate the construction of a world-leading science and technology park. In order to thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions, on April 25, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Beijing Municipal People's Government issued the "Zhongguancun World-Leading Science and Technology Park Construction Plan (2024-2027)", which proposes that by 2027, Zhongguancun will initially be built into a world-leading science and technology park, and by 2035, the world's leading science and technology park will be fully built.
The plan focuses on leading the concept to drive original innovation, talent development, first-class enterprises, high-end industries, and open innovation ecology, deploys 50 key tasks in five aspects, and launches a new batch of major policies and reform measures, so as to build Zhongguancun into the main position of the construction of Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center, a breakthrough in the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, a leader in China's high-quality development, and a key hub of the global innovation network, and contribute to the construction of Chinese-style modernization.
On the whole, by 2027, Zhongguancun will strive to reach the world's leading level in the field of life sciences and other fields, and achieve major breakthroughs in disruptive technologies and key core technologies; Four world-class industrial clusters with technology dominance in green and smart energy will promote the high-quality development of key industrial chains in the manufacturing industry, and advance the layout of future industries that will lead the development of the world; become a gathering area for international venture capital institutions, with the world's leading scale of venture capital funds; an open innovation ecology with global competitiveness will be fully formed, creating a highly concentrated industry, active open innovation, efficient and powerful mechanism, and perfect infrastructure. The Socialist Innovation Park with Chinese Characteristics with a fresh and beautiful environment has become an important benchmark for the development of science and technology parks in the world.
Major scientific and technological achievements II
Accelerate AI with "chips"——
Full analog optoelectronic intelligent computing chip
In the AI era, optical computing technology, which replaces "electricity" with "light" as the information processing carrier, has become an important technical core of artificial intelligence chips. Dai Qionghai's team at Tsinghua University broke through the physical bottleneck in the traditional chip architecture and developed the world's first fully analog optoelectronic intelligent computing chip.
It is understood that the chip has the characteristics of high speed and low power consumption, and the computing power in the intelligent visual object recognition task is more than 3,000 times that of the current high-performance commercial chips, and the energy efficiency is increased by 4 million times.
Major scientific and technological achievements III
The industry is eye-catching and wonderful——
Artificial intelligence has achieved a series of results
With the rapid evolution of AIGC technology, the release of multiple 100-billion-parameter pedestal large models, the leading user scale in China, the continuous enhancement of long text context understanding capabilities, the gradual expansion of AI Agent agent applications, and the initial potential of embodied intelligence, the first domestic launch of the Wensheng music model, the original breakthrough of the Wensheng video model, and the significant improvement in generation time and quality.
In addition, the world's first prototype of a value-driven general artificial intelligence system led by originality has been released, which can recognize human intentions and actively provide help, which has reached a certain level of intelligence for children and is continuing to grow.
"Our goal is to create an agent with autonomous perception, cognition, decision-making, learning and execution capabilities, and at the same time, it must also conform to human emotional ethics and moral concepts in terms of value. Chen Hao, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of General Artificial Intelligence, told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.
Major scientific and technological achievements IV
A weapon to harness the laser——
Original theory and material of corner boron nitride optical crystal
"The thickness of traditional optical crystals is usually millimeters to centimeters, but the thickness of our optical crystals is only 1-3 microns, about 1/100 of human hair, and the energy efficiency is 100-10,000 times higher than that of traditional optical crystals. Professor Liu Kaihui of the School of Physics of Peking University told a reporter from Beijing Business Daily.
The optical crystal mentioned by Professor Liu Kaihui is the "corner rhombolite" developed by the scientific research team of Peking University. This optical crystal rotates and stacks rhombic boron nitride materials at specific angles, has a super optical nonlinear effect, and is the thinnest optical crystal known in the world. However, this optical crystal, which is as thin as a cicada's wings, contains a super breakthrough in both material and theory.
Professor Liu Kaihui further added that although the "corner rhombus boron nitride optical crystal" has not yet been able to become a product, the impact and breakthrough it has brought and the promotion of new quality productivity are of far-reaching significance.
Major scientific and technological achievements five
Constructing a "Practical Road" for Quantum Computing
Quantum cloud computing power cluster
During the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum, the Quafu quantum computing cloud platform was officially unveiled. After a year, Quafu has ushered in a major upgrade. At the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference, the Beijing Institute of Quantum Information Science, the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University released the latest achievement "Large-scale Quantum Cloud Computing Power Cluster".
Quantum cloud is the key to quantum computing from the laboratory to the application, and it is of great strategic significance for the development of quantum computing algorithms, application exploration, and industrial ecological cultivation. According to reports, a new generation of quantum computing systems with a scale of five hundred-bits can form a cluster to work together by fusing with classical computing.
"This time it is not only an expansion of scale, but also a lot of technical iterations, which has significantly improved the quality of quantum cloud computing power. Jin Yirong, a researcher at the Beijing Institute of Quantum Information Science, mentioned to the Beijing Business Daily reporter for example that the fidelity of the platform has increased from 95% to 99%, which also means that the error rate has dropped from 5% to 1%, which is equivalent to a reduction of 5 times, which is a great degree of improvement.
Major scientific and technological achievements six
A powerful engine for green energy –
The final assembly of the 300 MW Class F heavy-duty gas turbine was completed
Heavy-duty gas turbine is the core equipment in the energy field, mainly using natural gas as fuel for power generation, with high efficiency, low emission, fast start and stop and other characteristics, widely used in ground power generation and power grid peak shaving, with an important strategic position and broad market prospects. Because it needs to operate for a long time in high-temperature, high-stress and high-corrosion environments, it involves multi-physics coupling, multidisciplinary technology integration, design, manufacturing, materials, testing and other technical challenges, and it is extremely difficult to integrate the whole machine technology and match the system performance, and is also known as the "crown jewel" of the equipment manufacturing industry.
On February 28, 2024, the first prototype of the 300 MW F-class heavy-duty gas turbine, the largest power and highest-tech heavy-duty gas turbine independently developed by Continental, rolled off the assembly line in Lingang, Shanghai, which is an important milestone in the independent innovation and development process of Continental's heavy-duty gas turbines, marking the first time that Continental's high-power heavy-duty gas turbines have completed the whole manufacturing process based on forward design and entered the final stage of complete machine testing and verification.
"The 300 MW F-class heavy-duty gas turbine that rolled off the assembly line this time is composed of five major systems and more than 50,000 parts, which is the largest power and highest-tech heavy-duty gas turbine independently developed by the mainland for the first time, and will become an important force in driving the development of high-end equipment manufacturing industry. Mo Jingfei, director of the science and technology management department of China United Heavy Gas Turbine Technology Co., Ltd., explained.
Major scientific and technological achievements VII
"Chip" contribution from open source -
The third-generation "Xiangshan" RISC-V open-source high-performance processor core
The processor chip industry is the foundation of the digital economy. Open source is an effective means to unite industrial forces and break the monopoly of technology. In recent years, the open source instruction set RISC-V is accelerating a new wave of change in processor chip technology and industry due to its high performance, low power consumption, flexibility and open source.
The "Xiangshan" open-source high-performance RISC-V processor core released this time has been developed to the third generation, achieving a breakthrough in both performance and development mode. It is reported that the third-generation "Xiangshan" open-source high-performance RISC-V processor core adopts the world's first joint development of processor chips based on the open source model, and the development was completed in only one and a half years.
"What makes Xiangshan different from other processors is that it is open source. Bao Yungang, deputy director of the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and chief scientist of the Beijing Open Source Chip Research Institute, further said, "At present, 'Xiangshan' has initially formed an application trend, and it is expected that a number of high-end chips based on 'Xiangshan' will enter the market and be applied in 2025." ”
Major scientific and technological achievements VIII
Genetic Improvement Escorts Food Security
Analysis and application of saline-alkali tolerance mechanism of crops
Cultivated land is of great significance to food security. "At present, there are 1.46 billion hectares of arable land in the world, but what is often ignored by the public is that there are still 1.4 billion hectares of saline-alkali land in the world, and the area of saline-alkali land in the mainland is as high as 100 million hectares, accounting for nearly 1/10 of the total area of saline-alkali land in the world. Xie Qi, a researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the "Institute of Genetics and Development"), said.
The research team of the Institute of Genetics and Development cooperated with 8 units, including China Agricultural University, Huazhong Agricultural University, and Syngenta Group, to discover the main alkali tolerance gene AT1 and its mechanism of action for the first time using saline-alkali tolerant crop sorghum as a material. Field experiments have shown that this gene can significantly improve the germplasm yield of saline-alkali tolerant crops such as sorghum, rice, millet and maize, and has a great application prospect in the comprehensive utilization of improved saline-alkali land.
For example, field experiments in the Pingluo saline-alkali land (pH 9.1) in Ningxia showed that the use of AT1 gene can increase the grain yield of sorghum by 20.1% and the whole plant biomass (silage) by nearly 30.5%.
Major scientific and technological achievements IX
Expand the boundaries of "heart and soul"——
"Beibrain No. 2" intelligent brain-computer system
As a cutting-edge emerging technology with deep cross-integration of life sciences and information technology, brain-computer interface has become an important direction for future industrial development.
It is reported that one of the major achievements released this time, "Beibrain No. 2", by the self-developed high-throughput flexible microwire electrode, thousand-channel electrophysiological acquisition system, real-time encoding and decoding algorithm and other key technologies, to complete the construction of the full-link system, the world's first realization of the macaque through the mind control of the two-dimensional motion target brain control interception, to solve the large-scale single-cell signal long-term stable recording and real-time decoding of the international frontier problem, this system has been stably implanted in the monkey skull for nearly a year, the key indicators of electrode performance leading in the world.
Li Yuan, business development director of Beijing Xinzhida Neurotechnology Co., Ltd., said that the invasive electrode system of "Beinao No. 2" has good biocompatibility with materials and can achieve stable signal acquisition, including the number of effective channels and the signal-to-noise ratio of the collected information, which can reach the world's leading level.
Major scientific and technological achievements ten
A series of internationally leading achievements have been made in major scientific and technological infrastructures
1. Exploring the mysteries of space – FAST is the first to detect the shortest orbital periodic pulsar binary system to date
The scientific research team of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has detected a binary star system named M71E based on the ultra-high sensitivity and super detection ability of the "China Sky Eye", and after long-term observation, it has been determined that the two stars of this system orbit for only 53 minutes, which is the shortest pulsar binary star system with the shortest orbiting period found so far. It is determined to be in the middle of the evolution process from the "red back" to the "black widow" system of the spider pulsar, which fills the missing link in the evolution theory of the spider pulsar. At the same time, the orbital plane of this binary star system is almost towards the Earth, which is extremely rare, and more discoveries are expected from further research.
2. Capture the cosmic messenger - "Lasso" discovered the brightest gamma burst in history with 10 trillion electron volts photons
Gamma burst is the most violent celestial explosion phenomenon in the universe, and because it occurs in a particularly extreme physical environment, it is also regarded as an extreme physics laboratory favored by the field of astrophysics and even basic physics, providing clues for human beings to explore the evolutionary history of the universe and other major questions.
Based on the "High Altitude Cosmic Ray Observatory (LHAASO)", which is often referred to as "Lasso", a major national scientific and technological infrastructure, the research team of the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences officially released the precise energy spectrum of the brightest gamma burst high-energy radiation to date, with a maximum energy of more than 10 trillion electron volts, challenging the standard radiation model of the traditional gamma burst afterglow, revealing that the cosmic background light is less intense than expected in the infrared band.
3. The source of energy of the future – EAST enables the world's longest repeatable operation of a highly confined mode plasma
Nuclear fusion, as a process of releasing huge energy through the fusion of light atomic nuclei to form heavier atomic nuclei, is regarded as an ideal alternative to fossil energy because of its efficient, safe and clean characteristics, and tokamak is one of the ways to achieve controlled nuclear fusion.
At 21:00 on April 12, 2023, the large scientific engineering team of magnetic confinement nuclear fusion of the Chinese Academy of Sciences achieved significant results based on the world's first fully superconducting tokamak EAST device in operation, and successfully achieved 403 seconds of steady-state long-pulse high-confinement mode plasma operation, creating a new world record for the high-confinement mode operation of the tokamak device.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Yang Yuehan