Citizens watched intelligent robots dancing at University of Science and Technology of China, Anhui province. (PHOTO: VCG)

By TANG Zhexiao

While China continues to inject energy into development of innovation capacity, its vitality in the area of science and technology has attracted world's attention.

Surging technical capabilities

Though the U.S. leaded the field of supercomputers for decades, the New York Times said experts believed two systems in China beat the U.S. Frontier model, in the race to be the first exascale computer.

According to biannual TOP 500 list, the Sunway Taihu Light, a system developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology and installed in Jiangsu province, is the fastest system in the world currently.

Meanwhile, aircraft manufacturing is seen as the indicator of a country's technical and industrial development, said Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, noting that China had completed pre-delivery maiden test flight of homemade C919 passenger aircraft this May. Besides, it also said China is at the forefront of many other high-tech fields including quantum computing, radio telescopes, 5G-6G communication networks and artificial intelligence.

Green energy achievements have seen the first offshore wind farm in southern Italy, Beleolico project adopted wind turbines provided by a Chinese energy company, marking the milestone of China-Europe cooperation in renewable energy. "Chinese wind-turbine makers have grown big on the back of their rapidly growing home market," said the Wall Street Journal, adding the Beleolico will demonstrate the capabilities of China's high-end manufacturing industry.

The country will "be a clean energy game-changer, " said the Space News, and it would "become a leader in green energy technology" and " a leading space power," according to The Hills. The Bloomberg, also noted China will add enough new solar power this year to nearly double last year's record amount of installations as the country accelerates its clean energy drives.

Chinese supercomputer "Sunway TaihuLight" .(PHOTO: XINHUA)

Strategic support

This year's data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that May sales in China of new energy vehicles (NEVs) rose 49.6 percent month-on-month even as overall purchases of cars fell.

Spanish national daily newspaper ABC said the rapid development of NEVs relied on farsighted strategies, including financial support by the government and a plan of adopting electronic public transport in selected cities.

Not only has the NEVs industry blossomed, but Chinese companies also see sci-tech investment up over the past decade. Investment in sci-tech by enterprises accounted for more than 76 percent of the country's total R&D investment, according to Ministry of Science and Technology. In 2012, the country's high-tech companies paid 800 billion RMB (about 120 billion USD) in taxes, and this number climbed to 2.3 trillion RMB in 2021.

China is closing the gap with the U.S. on research spending, and the U.S. is no longer the "uncontested leader" in science globally, said the US National Science Foundation on Nature.

Talent education & cultivation

The education model with Chinese characteristics plays an important role in the improvement of sci-tech capabilities.

The country has become one of the world's most important sources of talent and innovation hubs, said Kenya's The Star, adding that China's higher education sector is on a new path of high-quality development with Chinese characteristics and it is an example that needs to be adopted by developing countries.

The capacity of colleges and universities to serve major national strategies has also continued to increase. They have undertaken more than 60 percent of the national basic research tasks and more than 80 percent of the national natural science foundation projects, The Star reported.

Over the South Africa, China's education policy is providing a positive example according to The Independent Online, saying that "An indispensably vital element to innovation, inarguably, is the country's educational system and how it can convert innovation into a functional instrument for engendering solutions." It also said that the focus on policy implementation has greatly assisted China to become a leader in sci-tech research.