During the 14th Five-Year Plan interval (2021-2025), China’s capability for scientific and technological innovation considerably improved, with breakthroughs in core applied sciences in key fields accelerated, in response to an official report launched by the National Bureau of Statistics on June 2.
The report highlighted important progress within the nation’s innovation-driven growth technique.
R&D spending and expertise pool develop
China’s R&D expenditure elevated from 2.44 trillion RMB in 2020 to three.93 trillion RMB in 2025, marking a mean annual development charge of 10 %, the report confirmed. The nation’s R&D depth, or the share of R&D expenditure in GDP, rose from 2.36 % to 2.80 % throughout the identical interval, exceeding the typical degree of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) nations.
The variety of full-time R&D personnel expanded from 5.24 million person-years in 2020 to 7.95 million person-years in 2025, sustaining its world-leading rating for 13 consecutive years, in response to the report. The worth of expertise contracts nationwide surged from 2.8 trillion RMB in 2020 to 7.6 trillion RMB in 2025, indicating improved effectivity in commercializing applied sciences.
Strategic breakthroughs and infrastructure
During the five-year interval, China established 77 nationwide main sci-tech infrastructure initiatives, the report mentioned, including that a few of these services have reached world-class ranges. Breakthroughs have been made in frontier fields resembling quantum info, AI, life sciences, and deep-sea, deep-earth and deep-space exploration.
Progress in growing home chips and breakthroughs in working techniques was additionally made, together with management in LiDAR expertise. Major achievements embrace the total operation and utility of the Tiangong house station, common business flights of the homegrown C919 massive passenger plane, and the commissioning of the “Mengxiang” deep-ocean drilling vessel.
New high quality productive forces
By the top of 2025, China had cultivated over 600,000 tech and revolutionary small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 504,000 high-tech enterprises, and over 140,000 specialised and complicated SMEs, in response to the report.
Nearly 90 % of commercial enterprises above designated dimension had undergone digital transformation by the top of 2025. The added worth of the “three new” financial system — new industries, new enterprise codecs and new enterprise fashions — accounted for 18.01 % of GDP in 2024, up 1.5 % from 2020. The digital financial system’s share of GDP rose to 33.1 % in 2024, with China having 101 world-leading manufacturing services or “lighthouse factories,” the best quantity on this planet.
Broader financial and social influence
The 14th Five-Year Plan interval witnessed a leapfrog enchancment in China’s sci-tech innovation functionality, attaining new breakthroughs in high-level technological self-reliance, the report mentioned. It added that technological innovation has turn out to be the first driver of high-quality growth, absolutely built-in into all financial and social sectors.
Industrial robots at the moment are utilized in 71 main industrial sectors, and the density of robotic manufacturing in China far exceeds the worldwide common, the report mentioned. China’s put in capability of recent power storage accounts for over 50 % of the worldwide market, whereas the contribution charge of agricultural expertise development surpassed 64 % in 2025.
The report famous that distant medical service networks now cowl all cities and counties, and cross-provincial direct settlement of medical payments has benefited over 560 million affected person visits.
Looking forward to the fifteenth Five-Year Plan interval (2026-2030), the report referred to as for deepening reforms of the sci-tech system, enhancing the general effectivity of the innovation, and fostering new high quality productive forces.