Economic Daily | Focus on Building a Modern Industrial System

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that the modern industrial system is the material and technological foundation of a modernized country, and the focus of economic development must be placed on the real economy to provide strong material support for achieving the second centenary goal.

Since the 14th Five Year Plan, scenes of traditional industries, emerging industries, and future industries working together have been staged in various regions. By closely monitoring market demand and technological development trends, various regions are focusing on high-end, intelligent, and green industries, transforming and upgrading traditional industries, cultivating and strengthening emerging industries, and forward-looking layouts for future industries, the foundation of the real economy is more stable.

Traditional industries are the mainstay of China's manufacturing industry, with key indicators such as added value and number of workers accounting for about 80% of the total manufacturing industry. Most of these industries are basic and livelihood industries, which are not only the basic support for economic growth and mass employment, but also the fertile ground for developing and strengthening new quality productive forces.

Energy conservation and sustainable development complement each other, supporting the green transformation of traditional industries. During the 14th Five Year Plan period, China National Building Materials will accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, promote green and low-carbon development throughout the entire chain through source reduction, process reduction, and end of pipe carbon sequestration. As of June 2025, the comprehensive energy consumption per 10000 yuan of output value and the carbon emission intensity of cement clinker of the group have decreased by 15.51% and 5.74% respectively compared to the base period in 2020, achieving the energy-saving and emission reduction targets of the 14th Five Year Plan ahead of schedule. At present, 134 national level green factories, 40 green mines, and 141 "photovoltaic+" factories have been built, achieving an annual carbon reduction of 710000 tons.

Both policy guidance and market driven efforts are being made to assist traditional industries in moving towards intelligence. Enterprises have the best understanding of the pain points and bottlenecks in the industry, as well as the market demand. Shandong supports enterprises to take the lead in forming innovation consortia, with the proportion of enterprises leading the implementation of major science and technology projects in the province and relying on enterprises to build science and technology innovation platforms at or above the provincial level maintained at over 80%. The proportion of R&D institutions set up by industrial enterprises above designated size and the proportion of new product sales revenue to revenue rank second and third in the country, respectively. At the same time, the rolling promotion of "ten thousand technological upgrades and ten thousand enterprise transformations" resulted in a total investment of 441.8 billion yuan for 6570 provincial-level selected reserve industrial equipment renewal key projects last year.

Technological evolution and commercial promotion mutually promote each other, helping traditional industries to leap towards high-end development. For a long period of time, heavy structure, weak innovation, and short chain have been the weaknesses of the equipment manufacturing industry. Henan is targeting pain points, improving the province's laboratory innovation platform system, optimizing the "unveiling the list and leading the way" work mechanism, establishing industry university research consortia, and leading industrial transformation and upgrading with breakthroughs in key core technologies. In the first five months of this year, the transaction volume of technology contracts in Henan Province increased by 136% year-on-year. The relevant person in charge of the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Henan Province said that by 2025, the operating income of Henan's major technical equipment industry will strive to exceed 300 billion yuan, accounting for more than 20% of the equipment manufacturing industry.

Li Lecheng, Minister of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that since the 14th Five Year Plan, 46 cities supported by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have carried out pilot projects for new technological transformation, and have built more than 230 outstanding intelligent factories and 1260 5G factories. The newly installed capacity of industrial robots accounts for more than 50% of the global total. The overall comprehensive energy consumption of unit products such as steel and cement clinker has reached the world's advanced level, and the annual output of green electrolytic aluminum exceeds 10 million tons. The brand reputation of traditional manufacturing has greatly improved, and high-quality products are sold well worldwide. Last year, 18 traditional manufacturing enterprises in China were selected as one of the Fortune Global 500 brands.

Emerging industries are an important battlefield for cultivating new quality productivity. Only by promoting the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation can we accelerate the development of emerging industry clusters.

The first step in developing a good industry is innovation. The ideal production scenario for an automobile factory is to complete the installation of the body logo in 10 seconds, achieve automated pre-processing of the body in 50 seconds, and transport parts automatically by AGV carts. Nearly 2T data information is photographed, recognized, and uploaded every day, and every item of vehicle manufacturing data is recorded. Wang Lei, the person in charge of the Beijing base of Ideal Automobile, said that automation gives the factory machinery a physical body, visual systems and quality warning platforms provide eyes, and intelligent manufacturing operating systems constitute the brain. The entire factory is driven by data and intelligence.

Since the 14th Five Year Plan, the new energy vehicle industry has continuously improved its core competitiveness, with an annual production and sales scale of over 12 million vehicles, continuous breakthroughs in key core technologies, continuous improvement in the independent controllability of the entire industry chain, and accelerated pace of independent brands going global. Thanks to systematic technological breakthroughs, including battery technology, closed-loop ecology, research and development investment, and patent advantages, China's new energy vehicles have achieved a historic leap from "following" to "leading". Data shows that in August 2025, 1.33 million new energy vehicles were produced, a year-on-year increase of 23%.

The key to seizing the bull's nose in industrial development lies in quality. Shandong Haihua Group Co., Ltd. is an important marine chemical production base and a leading salt chemical enterprise. It is also the "chain owner" of Weifang's high-end chemical industry chain for comprehensive utilization of marine chemicals. In the intelligent workshop of Shandong Haihua Chlor Alkali Plant, the ion membrane electrolysis cell is independently and efficiently producing caustic soda, chlorine gas, and hydrogen gas. The entire process does not rely on manual labor, but mainly relies on continuous machine learning training to achieve "real-time optimization and autonomous decision-making".

Wei Daisen, General Manager of Inspur Digital Enterprise, stated that Shandong Haihua relies on the Inspur Haiyue big model to create the "Salt Chemical Intelligent Control Big Model", constructing three intelligent agents for process optimization, equipment maintenance, and intelligent inspection, significantly improving the level of intelligence, achieving an annual increase of 8760 tons of soda ash and a reduction of 4.5 million kilowatt hours in chlor alkali energy consumption. The overall comprehensive benefits generated are close to 100 million yuan, promoting the enterprise to shift from experience driven to AI driven.

Since the 14th Five Year Plan, a number of advantageous industries with international competitiveness, such as new energy vehicles, photovoltaics, lithium batteries, ships, and marine engineering equipment, have been cultivated and strengthened, and new formats and models such as flexible customization, shared manufacturing, smart logistics, and intelligent security have accelerated their emergence. In 2024, China's production and sales of new energy vehicles will be 9.5 times that of 2020, and the production of photovoltaic and wind power equipment will rank among the top in the world.

While people are still amazed by the futuristic hardcore technology in science fiction movies, the 'future' has quietly arrived.

After implanting thin electrodes like cicada wings into the brain, high paraplegic patients can play Tetris with their minds... This scene has become a reality at the Beijing Institute of Neuroscience and Brain Research. The director of the institute, Luo Minmin, said that in March of this year, the "Beinao-1" intelligent brain computer system, jointly developed by the research institute and enterprises, has entered the clinical validation stage. Currently, multiple patients have completed surgical implantation and have recovered well after surgery. After training, they have achieved motor imagery brain control.

The breakthrough in brain computer interface applications is a microcosm of the innovative development of Beijing's pharmaceutical and health industry. Beijing has implemented three rounds of action plans to accelerate collaborative innovation in medicine and health. In just five years after 2019, the annual industrial scale has achieved a leapfrog growth from over 50 billion yuan to 1.06 trillion yuan. Liu Hui, Director of Beijing Medical and Health Technology Development Center, introduced that Beijing maintains a technological leading advantage in the segmented fields of brain computer interface and synthetic biomanufacturing.

Localities should tailor their future industries according to local conditions. Sichuan Province is laying out the industrial metaverse, promoting the construction of four major systems including the full lifecycle manufacturing system, full series product system, full scenario application system, and full chain service system of the industrial metaverse. Hunan is fully committed to promoting the high-quality development of the artificial intelligence industry. By 2024, Changsha will add 1178 new artificial intelligence research and development institutions, forming a complete chain of "hardware, algorithms, and applications". Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, is focusing on cultivating the nanotechnology industry. From research and development, achievement transformation to product testing, small-scale OEM production, etc., new business forms and models centered around nanotechnology are constantly emerging.

From a national perspective, since the 14th Five Year Plan, the application of brain computer interfaces has expanded from the medical field to education, industry and other fields. Humanoid robots have the ability to manufacture the entire industry chain from key chips, components to complete machines. Superconducting quantum computers and optical quantum computers have achieved quantum superiority verification. The overall level of laser manufacturing technology has entered the international first tier. Biological manufacturing technology is widely used in industries such as medicine and health, daily chemical beauty, and green energy.

The layout of future technology is a prerequisite for the layout of future industries, and technology needs to explore, develop, produce, and reserve for one generation. Since the 14th Five Year Plan, relevant departments have systematically planned six key directions including future manufacturing, future information, future materials, future energy, future space, and future health. They have deployed more than 100 "unveiling and leading" research and development tasks, and guided local governments to build 63 provincial-level future industry pilot zones according to local conditions.

Information source: Economic Daily