A visitor looks at the quantum computer prototype "Jiuzhang," in Heifei. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By CHEN Chunyou

Hefei High-tech Zone (HHZ), located in east China's Anhui province, has been ranked among the top ten national high-tech zones for eight consecutive years.

In the past decade, HHZ's regional GDP had increased from 33.7 billion RMB in 2012 to 125.27 billion RMB in 2021, with an average annual growth of 15.7 percent, and the number of national high-tech enterprises had increased from 302 to 2,000.

One of the typical industries in HHZ is the quantum industry, which has made significant progress in leading the country's quantum information development.

According to the action plan for building a world-leading science and technology park in HHZ, released this September, the output value of quantum information industry is expected to exceed 20 billion RMB, and the number of enterprises in this field is planned to exceed 100 by 2025.

HHZ is the core area of Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, and is home to world-class universities, such as University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).

In recent years, professors and students from USTC come to HHZ and advance the industrialization of their research achievements in the quantum field, and set up leading enterprises, represented by Origin Quantum, QuantumCtek, and CIQTEK, which have become the strength for HHZ in developing quantum at home and abroad.

Origin Quantum, founded in September 2017, is the first enterprise in China to officially put quantum computing into commercial use. Over the past five years, it has applied for more than 500 patents, ranking first in China, and filling many gaps in the chain of quantum computer applications.

Its inventions, all of which are pioneered in China, include a superconducting quantum computer called Wu Yuan, an all-in-one quantum computer measurement and control machine, a quantum computing cloud platform with a superconductor quantum computer, and a quantum operating system.

In addition, with competitive talent resources, HHZ has continued to break through the bottleneck technologies and key technologies, and cultivated some future industries, such as quantum technology, artificial intelligence and future energy.

In April 2018, HHZ was included in the action plan for building "world-class high-tech parks" by the Ministry of Science and Technology, which indicates that HHZ has the potential for competing in the world.

To date, a total of 77 enterprises in HHZ have state-level R&D institutes, and the number is second only to Beijing's Zhongguancun, which is a leading science and technology park in China.

Since 2021, HHZ has been accelerating building China's first quantum computing industrial park, which is to accumulate upstream and downstream enterprises here to help form a complete industrial chain. It is expected that by 2035 HHZ will have grown to be an influential quantum center in the world.