* The 2026 Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum) Annual Conference has as soon as once more drawn international consideration to China’s innovation drive, with a spotlight this yr on nearer integration between technological and industrial innovation.
* China’s define of the fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) locations the combination of technological and industrial innovation excessive on the agenda. Since the blueprint’s launch, the ZGC Forum has emerged as one of many key platforms for gathering international insights on advancing this aim.
* Innovation has lengthy been central to China’s improvement agenda. After years of sustained efforts, the nation has change into a significant international hub for innovation.
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) — The 2026 Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum) Annual Conference has as soon as once more drawn international consideration to China’s innovation drive, with a spotlight this yr on nearer integration between technological and industrial innovation.
The newest episode of the China Economic Roundtable, an all-media discuss present hosted by Xinhua News Agency, delved into this key theme. Guests from authorities, trade and academia examined how this alignment may inject recent momentum into the world’s second-largest financial system within the coming years.
INTEGRATION TAKES CENTER STAGE
China’s newly launched define of the fifteenth Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) locations the combination of technological and industrial innovation excessive on the agenda. Since the blueprint’s launch, the ZGC Forum has emerged as one of many key platforms for gathering international insights on advancing this aim.
“At the forum, industry leaders from around the world shared their views on cutting-edge technologies and emerging industrial frontiers,” stated Zhai Tianrui, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park, on the roundtable. Zhai stated the ZGC Forum itself mirrored the spirit of integration by bringing collectively researchers, entrepreneurs and policymakers to discover sensible options.
Exhibits on the forum provided a more in-depth take a look at how breakthroughs may be translated into productiveness. A variety of rising applied sciences — from 3D displays to robots with improved sensing talents — have been showcased, demonstrating pathways from analysis to industrial purposes.
For Liu Hui, head of the Consumption and Industry Development Research Institute of JD.com, the hot button is to match applied sciences with utility wants. Liu stated efforts ought to give attention to higher aligning innovation with real-world eventualities to assist industries scale back prices, enhance effectivity and help the event of future industries.
Guests additionally cited momentum in frontier fields resembling synthetic intelligence, quantum info and biomanufacturing, highlighting them as essential drivers for fostering new high quality productive forces.
Zhang Xiaoyan, deputy director of China Center for Information Industry Development, stated that as a brand new wave of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation positive factors pace world wide, the tempo of turning innovation into industrial purposes can also be accelerating. Against this backdrop, Zhang added, China has secured early benefits in some fields, creating favorable situations to grab future alternatives.
TURNING BLUEPRINT INTO ACTION
Innovation has lengthy been central to China’s improvement agenda. After years of sustained efforts, the nation has change into a significant international hub for innovation. The World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2025 ranked China among the many international high 10 for the primary time.
China has additionally established the world’s largest manufacturing system by scale, with essentially the most complete industrial classes. With strengths in each technological innovation and industrial capability, visitors stated, deeper integration between the 2 may create a multiplier impact.
With such integration listed as a key activity within the nation’s improvement blueprint for the subsequent 5 years, consultants burdened that the precedence now’s to translate the plan into concrete motion, with native practices already offering sensible examples.
Beijing has been among the many front-runners in advancing this integration. Over the years, the capital has inspired enterprises to take the lead in constructing innovation facilities, strengthened cooperation mechanisms linking incubators, universities and industrial parks, and guided monetary capital towards know-how improvement.
Efforts are additionally being superior via nationwide innovation hubs. According to this yr’s authorities work report, China plans to develop Beijing (the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area), Shanghai (the Yangtze River Delta) and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into worldwide facilities for sci-tech innovation and switch them into world-class innovation engines.
Liu Dongmei, Party secretary of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, stated that to additional strengthen their position, the innovation hubs ought to totally leverage their means to draw innovation and promote the sharing of analysis and improvement sources. Liu added that sci-tech innovation clusters ought to be constructed round key industries.
Looking forward, visitors expressed confidence that China’s basis for sci-tech innovation will change into extra stable. “China’s research and development will shift from being high-end and impressive to more practical and accessible,” Zhang stated, including that small and medium-sized enterprises will transfer from serving primarily as suppliers for massive corporations to turning into collaborative innovation companions.
“China will also transition from being a testing ground for innovative applications to becoming a global source of innovation,” Zhang stated.
(Video reporters: Xia Zilin, Bao He, Liu Yang; Video editors: Zhang Yueyuan, Roger Lott) ■