Changes have taken place in China’s position and role in the global innovation landscape, with the country becoming not only an important participant but also a major contributor to international frontier innovation, according to the Boao Forum for Asian Innovation Report 2021. “Amid a transformation unseen in a century and growing uncertainties, innovation has become a primary driving force for scientific and technological progress, industrial upgrading and sustainable economic growth,” said Li Baodong, Secretary General of the Boao Forum for Asia. China has established itself as a global leader in innovation, creation and intellectual property, ranking 12th in the Global Innovation Index 2021, a rise from 22nd place in 2017, according to the report. Among the top 100 best technology clusters in the world, a total of 19 cities on the Chinese mainland have entered the list, ranking second in the world, according to Li.
Innovative technologies, especially 5G and artificial intelligence, will accelerate the emergence of disruptive technologies, new economic forms and production methods. The report also indicated that the Internet of Things (IoT) built on 5G technology is expected to become a driving force for the transformation of productivity, and data has become a key factor of production and a strategic resource. Intellectual property, as the driving force of scientific and technological innovation, has gradually become the core element of international competitiveness and an important global trade resource, according to the report.
The capital Beijing has maintained scientific and technological innovation over the past five years, mainly focusing on breakthroughs in basic research and core technologies, local officials said. Innovation has helped the city yield fruitful results in the sector. Last year, for example, the Chinese capital ranked first in research output related to the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals from 2015-20 according to the Nature Index 2021 Science Cities. The Chinese capital also came out on top of the global science city rankings in terms of overall performance in 2020, a position it has held since 2016. Moreover, Beijing has a group of highly cited researchers and its number of invention patents per 10,000 people is 10 times the national average. The number of national science and technology awards Beijing has won accounts for about 30% of the nation’s total.
The city has also organized or been chosen to host high-end sci-tech events such as the 2022 Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence Conference from May 31 to June 2. The event included 26 forums covering such cutting-edge topics as brainlike calculation, AI for science, AI and metaverse, and brain simulation and biological intelligence. Leading experts and scientists in these sectors gathered to discuss pressing problems that needed to be addressed for AI academia, and the challenges that exist in the delivery of related industrial projects.
The city has developed some key industrial parks in the past few years as main innovation platforms. They include Zhongguancun Science City, Huairou Science City and Future Science City. Huairou Science City, on which construction started in 2017, has attracted top universities and major state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with a cluster of scientific installations and technological facilities. During the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-20), 29 sci-tech platforms were built in the science city, and about half of them are expected to be put into use by the end of this year. In June 2021, the EarthLab, China’s first Earth-system numerical simulation facility, was launched in the science city. The facility can simulate climate, environmental, ecological, earth and space weather systems to predict and mitigate natural disasters.
According to a report by data processing company Ba Yue Gua, of the top 500 tech businesses in China, 109 are from Beijing, ranking the city first. Shenzhen in Guangdong province, with 64 tech companies on the list, and Shanghai, with 45, held second and third place respectively. The combined patents of the Beijing group of 109 companies account for more than 30% of the total of the top 500 players on the list. Their contribution to the total of overseas patent applications filed via the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) surpassed 20%, which demonstrates their international competitiveness. Of the 109 businesses, nearly half are SOEs, including 30 in the nation’s top 100 list. Most of them are involved in national pillar industries such as energy, power, transportation, aerospace and telecommunications. More than 70% of the Beijing businesses on the list are publicly listed companies,
Chinese companies’ readiness to invest heavily in research and development in pursuit of innovation over the past decade has led China to dominate the patent filings in Europe, experts say. The number of patent applications from China at the European Patent Office (EPO) has more than quadrupled in the past 10 years and, by 2021, they accounted for 9% of all applications at the EPO, rising from 3% in 2012, the China Daily reports.
