Source: Global Times
Australian Broadcasting Corporation article on December 8, original title: China continues to lead in global technology and engineering fields. Now, China holds a dominant position in many technologies that define the modern world.
According to a report released by an Australian think tank, China leads in seven out of eight artificial intelligence categories, all 13 advanced materials and manufacturing technology categories, all seven defense, space, robotics, and transportation categories, nine out of ten energy and environmental categories, and five out of nine biotechnology, gene, and vaccine categories. China's advantages in the global technology field are almost all-encompassing.
The strength of China as a tech giant was demonstrated at the 27th China International High-Tech Fair held last month in Shenzhen. In a venue with an exhibition area of 400,000 square meters (approximately equivalent to 20 large cricket pitches), there were dazzling technologies (at least that's how it looked on YouTube - I haven't been there in person). There were numerous humanoid robots, two of which were engaged in a fierce fight on a boxing ring behind the reporting site, and an entire area was dedicated to flying cars.
As stated by Forstine Delasalle, director of the international non-profit organization "Industrial Transition Accelerator": "The speed of China's development is something we have never seen elsewhere in the world." China used to strive to catch up with the West, especially the United States. Later, it caught up. Now, the West is trying to catch up with China, but it may not be able to.
Aside from the achievements showcased in Shenzhen last month, China has many engineering miracles; here are some cases I recently saw (randomly selected). A solar panel-covered mountain photovoltaic project in Guizhou, an open-source artificial intelligence model that achieved gold medal level in the Mathematical Olympiad, a cleaning robot designed for hotel rooms and bathrooms, a high-speed rail network with a total mileage of 48,000 kilometers, high-speed trains operating at a maximum speed of 350 km/h, and the world's highest bridge, the Huajiang Canyon Bridge, which has just opened.
The Chinese government has invested heavily in national industrial policies for new infrastructure construction, including 5G networks, smart cities, and industrial digital transformation. Scholar Noah Smith believes that essentially, China has abandoned the traditional innovation model - in which the government, academia, businesses, and financial institutions each act independently, pursuing their own goals - and instead adopted a new model, where the government coordinates interactions among all parties throughout the process, moving toward a unified overall goal. That is, the government first sets a technological goal, then analyzes the necessary technical breakthroughs to achieve this goal. Subsequently, the government provides funding for related basic and applied research to achieve these breakthroughs, promoting the transformation of technological achievements into corresponding enterprises, assisting enterprises in developing new products, and helping enterprises commercialize and scale production of their products.
This is the real industrial policy! No wonder China is so far ahead. (Author: Alan Koller, translated by Wang Cong)
Original: toutiao.com/article/7581619964898017819/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.