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E-mail China.org.cn, March 28, 2024
CCTV:
We all know that the international center for innovation is one of the strategic stances in the "four centers" urban strategy plan that is designated for Beijing by the central government. Mr. Yin, how does Beijing plan to establish itself as the international center for innovation and a hub for high-caliber personnel?
Yin Yong:
Alright, I'll answer your question. Building Beijing into an international sci-tech innovation center is the mission entrusted to the city by the CPC Central Committee. Beijing has a prominent advantage in educational and technological talent and has the foundation and conditions to contribute to the country's self-reliance and strength in science and technology. From a hardware perspective, Beijing is home to 92 universities and more than 1,000 research institutes. It leads the nation in the number of national laboratories and major scientific facilities. Additionally, our R&D intensity has remained at around 6% for many years, ranking at the forefront both nationally and globally. From a software perspective, we have introduced a series of regulations, including those on commercializing scientific and technological achievements and protecting intellectual property rights. We have implemented 24 pilot reform measures in Zhongguancun, continuously solidifying the institutional environment that supports comprehensive innovation. From a talent perspective, Beijing is home to over 550,000 scientific researchers, nearly half of the academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and more than a quarter of the experts from the "Ten Thousand Talents Program." We have achieved 411 selections to the global "Highly Cited Researchers" list, ranking first among cities worldwide. Our talent advantage is also prominent in cutting-edge scientific and technological fields. For example, in the highly regarded field of artificial intelligence, Beijing's top AI talents account for about 43% of the national total.
In recent years, Beijing's efforts in building itself into an international sci-tech innovation center has yielded significant results. From the perspective of scientific research outcomes, we have surpassed 262 patent ownerships per 10,000 people and published 1,292 highly cited papers, both of which rank first in the nation. We have also seen the emergence of major innovative achievements such as the new generation quantum computing cloud platform, Quafu, and the ultra-large-scale intelligent model, Wudao 3.0. From the perspective of industrial commercialization, in 2023, the transaction volume of technology contracts in Beijing exceeded 850 billion yuan, with an average of 337 technology-based enterprises being established daily. The numbers of national high-tech enterprises, "little giant" enterprises that utilize special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products, and unicorn companies all rank first among cities nationwide. From a comprehensive evaluation, Beijing has been ranked first in the Nature Index Science Cities globally for eight consecutive years, entering the forefront of global innovative cities.
Facing a new round of global technological and industrial changes, we will continue swiftly seizing opportunities and maintaining momentum in the following areas.
First, in terms of enhancing our capacity for scientific and technological breakthroughs, we must concentrate firmly on three aspects. First, focus on "breakthroughs" by thoroughly implementing action plans for key and core technologies, striving to overcome technical "bottlenecks" in various fields. Second, focus on "taking the lead" by targeting over 20 areas, such as future information, health, manufacturing, energy, materials, and space, actively seizing the upper hand in future industrial development. Lastly, focus on "upgrading," which involves concentrating on more than 30 sub-fields in sectors of high-end, sophisticated and cutting-edge technologies, bolstering scientific and technological innovation, and continuously enhancing the core competitiveness of our key industries.
Second, we must deepen the reform of the scientific and technological system, focusing on solving four types of problems. To address the disconnection between industry, universities, and research institutes, we emphasize establishing enterprise-led innovation consortia, making effective use of the open competition mechanism for selecting the best candidates to lead research projects, and promoting better coordination between industry, universities, and research institutes. To tackle the difficulties in commercializing scientific and technological achievements, we need to effectively implement the regulations on achievement commercialization, genuinely protect the rights and interests of R&D personnel, and allow them to fully enjoy the benefits of commercialization. Regarding the issue of science and technology parks being "small, scattered, and weak," we adopt a "one park, one plan" strategy to optimize and enhance the development quality of each park. We employ a bottom-out mechanism to compel all parks to improve their operational and management capabilities. To address the lack of vitality among scientific research entities, we grant greater autonomy to new-type R&D institutions. While the government does not interfere with daily activities, we will strengthen third-party assessments and evaluations. For those with poor evaluation results, we will gradually "phase out" support in terms of funding, aiming to bolster the excellent and eliminate the weak.
Third, we will strengthen the training and introduction of talents, and coordinate four types of talents in a systematic way. For leading scientists, we will establish a mechanism for their rapid discovery, introduction and arrangement, and provide special support and guarantee policies for innovative teams. For young scientists, we must make good use of and launch more support programs such as the “Beijing Young Scholars” and “New Scientific and Technological Stars”, provide more long-term and stable scientific research funding, and encourage young talents to take the lead. For outstanding engineers, we will deepen the pilot reform of engineering master and doctor training that integrates industry and education, and cultivate talents that are urgently needed in the industry. For master craftsmen and highly skilled workers, we will strengthen the construction of studios for them and cultivate high-quality industry talents.
Talents are the future and source of vitality in a city. We will make more meticulous efforts in talent-related work, and widen the door for talent recruitment, so that all kinds of talents can find a place in Beijing and give full play to their abilities. Thank you.
Reuters:
Beijing has several high-tech projects in the pipeline, including the expansion of autonomous driving projects by Baidu and Pony.ai and new factories for CATL’s batteries and Xiaomi’s EV production. What more can we expect this year in terms of regulatory efforts to attract more investment in these areas? And what aspirations does Beijing have for its role in EV and AV development?
Yin Yong:
Thank you for your questions. You have noted the layout and development of companies such as Baidu, Pony.ai, Xiaomi and CATL in Beijing. These are closely related to Beijing's high-level autonomous driving projects.
New energy vehicles (NEVs) and autonomous driving (AD) are important forces behind smart transport and may profoundly change the way people travel and urban governance. From the perspective of urban management, we are paying particular attention to the changes that AD may bring. In the past few years, Beijing has conducted in-depth research on the development of AD technology. Through comparative analysis, we found that although the current AD technology is developing rapidly, the cost is still relatively high, and there is still a long way to go to achieve safe and reliable commercial applications. At the same time, it seems that there is no connection between smart AD and the smart development of Beijing. Therefore, Beijing took the lead in adopting vehicle-infrastructure cooperated autonomous driving (VICAD) technology three years ago to promote the development of AD technology. We started in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (located in Yizhuang, southeast Beijing), designating an area of 60 square kilometers for the pilot, which we gradually expanded to 600 square kilometers. The pilot has now entered its third stage. We have created a VICAD system that feeds various data back to self-driving vehicles through intelligent sensing devices on the roadside and the cloud dispatching system. This significantly improves the safety of AD vehicles and reduces the costs and dependence for AD capabilities. We have opened AD vehicle application scenarios from Beijing Daxing International Airport to Yizhuang, and from the three cultural landmarks in Beijing’s sub-center to the subway station, launched an AD freight transport pilot from Beijing to Tianjin Port, and implemented unmanned sanitation vehicles for road cleaning at night. Driverless taxis have also been put into commercial operation. We have achieved exciting results. We are planning a larger-scale construction to connect some of Beijing’s suburban areas. These promotions and applications have brought unexpected results. For example, the AD vehicle service launched by Beijing Daxing International Airport provides passengers arriving at night with more choices; unmanned sanitation vehicles can clean at night no matter the weather conditions, and without getting tired or falling asleep; and driverless taxis provide passengers with greater privacy — with some passengers arranging meetings during their rides. Through the construction of a roadside sensing system, there is improved perception of traffic flow at intersections. Formerly, the signal light timing method at these intersections was relatively fixed, that is, the intervals between light changes were fixed. Now in the pilot area, the daily setting of traffic light intervals at each intersection will be dynamically adjusted 110 times on average per day based on the actual traffic flow on the roads. Take the 160 square kilometers in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area as an example. Last year, despite a 20% increase in traffic volume, vehicle speed in the area increased by more than 15%, which contributed toward solving the problem of urban traffic congestion through the optimization of traffic light interval scheduling.
These exciting practical results inspire us to further deepen the interplay between autonomous driving and smart city construction. We will continue to attract more leading enterprises and research institutions in this field, improve upstream and downstream support for the industrial chain, and welcome various types of capital, especially long-term capital, to increase investment in this area. Our explorations have also attracted significant attention from domestic and international counterparts. Institutions and companies from countries such as the United States, France, Japan and Singapore have come to exchange and discuss ideas. We are willing to share the explorations and practices carried out in Beijing to collectively address the common challenges we face in urban management and social development.
Thank you.
