Amid US tech war, Premier Li Qiang urges China to focus on application of core technologies

“We need to improve collaboration between academia and business, by introducing more precise and supportive measures, thus fluidly turning scientific research into market production,” the premier said after visiting HGLaser Engineering and semiconductor manufacturer Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation (YMTC) in the provincial capital of Wuhan.

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Given the escalating containment efforts by the United States, Beijing is continually seeking to tackle choke points with home-grown technology.

Development was also mentioned as China’s biggest priority for 2024 at the tone-setting central economic work conference in mid-December.

HGLaser introduced China’s first fully domestically produced chip-cutting machine in July, according to the WeChat account of Donghu New Technology Development Zone in Wuhan.

But unlike China’s leading memory chip maker, YMTC, HGLaser has not been sanctioned by the US. YMTC was added to the US trade blacklist in December 2022.

During his two-day tour, Li also inspected Wuhan University’s laboratory on high-resolution Earth observation and the BeiDou navigation system.

The home-grown BeiDou system, which is China’s equivalent to the US’ Global Positioning System (GPS), can be applied to agriculture, forestry and meteorology.

China, though, has long suffered from loose cooperation between academia, including universities and research institutes, and enterprises focused on market applications.

The cooperation issues include poor communication and insufficient resource sharing, which creates obstacles affecting the transformation of inventions in China.

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As of the end of 2022, only 3.9 per cent of inventions at Chinese universities were industrialised, according to the latest data available by the China National Intellectual Property Administration, compared to around 50 per cent in the US.

Li also visited water conservancy projects and a chemical company focusing on green development in Yichang, as well as a battery industrial estate set up by Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology, a subsidiary under China’s leading lithium battery maker, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL).

CATL is a supplier to several carmakers, including Tesla, BMW and Volkswagen.

The premier also encouraged companies to promote China’s sustainability by focusing on the circular economy to drive companies up the value chain.

The circular economy model seeks to minimise wasting resources and environmental impact by extending the life cycle of products.

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Китай Наука и Технологии

Ли Цзян ядерный технология технологический война применение премьер-министр HGLaser Engineering