Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun speaks during a press conference held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on science, technology and innovation achievements in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 18, 2025. (Xinhua/Chen Yehua)
BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- China will continue promoting the development of new quality productive forces through sci-tech innovation, boosting the integration of sci-tech innovation and industrial innovation, and injecting strong momentum into high-quality development, China's Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun said at a State Council Information Office press conference on Thursday.
Yin said that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), China's sci-tech innovation and industrial innovation have been increasingly integrated, leading to the rapid development of new quality productive forces.
The value-added output of large-scale high-tech manufacturing enterprises -- each with an annual main-business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.8 million U.S. dollars) -- is up 42 percent compared to the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020), according to Yin.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the innovation capabilities of enterprises have improved significantly. In 2024, 524 Chinese mainland enterprises were listed among the world's top 2,000 industrial enterprises in terms of R&D investment, accounting for 26.2 percent of the total, which was an increase of 4.8 percentage points from 2020.
Yin stressed that innovation in fields such as AI, the Internet of Things and big data has enabled traditional industries to become high-end, intelligent and green. Innovation in sectors such as new-generation information technology and new energy has also aided the development and growth of emerging industries.
China has repeatedly broken its own world records for photovoltaic crystalline silicon cell efficiency and single-unit offshore wind turbine capacity.
According to official data, the world's highest-capacity offshore wind turbine is currently the 26-megawatt unit that was installed off the coast of east China's Shandong Province in late August. With an average annual wind speed of 10 meters per second, a single unit can generate 100 million kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year.
The country's new-energy technology patents now account for over 40 percent of the global total. In the first half of 2025, the increase in electricity generated by wind and solar power in China exceeded the growth of the country's total electricity consumption.
Yin also noted that cutting-edge technologies such as AI and brain-computer interface devices have laid the foundations for the growth of future industries. China has, for example, developed a number of general large language models that have reached an internationally advanced level, creating more than 100 application scenarios.
In another example, China's technology breakthroughs have accelerated the application of humanoid robots in automobile manufacturing, logistics handling and power inspection scenarios, among others, laying a solid foundation for the development of this trillion-yuan-scale future industry, he added.
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