China has made great achievements in scientific and technological innovation during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. As China embarks on a new journey to build a modern socialist country in all respects, sci-tech innovation will play a vital role in promoting the country’s overall development.
Since 2013, China has consistently and steadily moved up the ranks in the Global Innovation Index, establishing itself as a global innovation leader while closing in on the top 10 every year. According to the recent Global Innovation Index released by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, China moved up from 29th place in 2015 to 12th this year in the world ranking.
– Cutting-Edge Sci-Tech Progress
Researchers established the quantum computer prototype “Jiuzhang” through which up to 76 photons were detected, achieving quantum computational advantage. This achievement marks that China has reached the first milestone on the path to full-scale quantum computing — a quantum computational advantage, which indicates an overwhelming quantum computational speedup.
Another technological innovation is a hybrid artificial intelligence (AI) chip named Tianjic that enables a bike to not only balance itself but steer itself around obstacles, respond to voice commands, and even make independent decisions. Moreover, China launched a space telescope, the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), or Insight, to observe black holes, neutron stars, gamma-ray bursts, and other celestial phenomena.
Innovations for Exploring Space and Deep Sea
China launched the Tianwen-1 mission, comprising an orbiter, lander and rover. The rover Zhurong has travelled more than 1,000 meters since it landed on Mars. The Chang’e-5 probe, comprising an orbiter, a lander, an ascender, and a returner has also been launched.
As reported by OpenGov Asia, China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) released two photos and two videos captured by China’s Mars probe Tianwen-1 during and after the country’s first landing on the red planet.
The first photograph, a black and white image, was taken by an obstacle avoidance camera installed in front of the Mars rover. The image shows that a ramp on the lander has been extended to the surface of Mars. The terrain of the rover’s forward direction is visible in the image, and the horizon of Mars appears curved due to the wide-angle lens.
The return capsule landed in north China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, retrieving about 1,731 grams of moon samples. The China National Space Administration delivered approximately 17 grams of sample to 13 institutions. They each applied for research programs.
Sci-Tech for Social and Economic Development
A giant shield tunnelling machine with a diameter of 16 meters rolled off the production line in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan province. This machine is 150 meters in length and 4,300 tonnes in weight and is the largest shield tunnelling machine produced by China so far.
China has also launched its carbon dioxide monitoring satellite TanSat, becoming the third country after Japan and the United States to monitor greenhouse gases through its own satellite. The satellite’s mission is to achieve high-precision monitoring of the global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and provide satellite data for scientific research.
China officially commissioned the BDS (BeiDou Navigation Satellite System) on opening the new BDS-3 system to global users. Since then, the BDS-3 system has been operating smoothly and providing stable quality services to global users.
Earlier OpenGov Asia wrote about China’s BeiDou navigation industry has increased in value as the industry is estimated to exceed 1 trillion yuan (about US$ 155 billion) by 2025, taking up 20 to 25% of the global share, according to an expert. The year 2020 was a major turning point for BeiDou, as the construction of the system was completed and the focus shifted to its industrialisation and large-scale applications.