China has seen fruitful advances in scientific and technological innovation over the past five years, becoming one of the countries with the fastest growing innovation capacity, said Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun on Tuesday.
Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, Yin said substantial progress has been made in building up China's strength in science and technology over the past five years.
"In 2025, China's total research and development investment exceeded 3.92 trillion yuan (about 569 billion U.S. dollars), reaching 2.8 percent of the GDP and surpassing the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries for the first time. The number of PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) international patent applications and the number of papers in high-level international journals have ranked the first in the world for many consecutive years," he said.
The minister cited China's scientific and technological achievements, including open-source AI models leading the global race, the booming development of new energy vehicles, humanoid robots, and other emerging industries, and breakthroughs in the semiconductor sector and innovative drugs, in proving China's rapid progress in science and technology.
"The National Innovation Index Report 2025 released by the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development shows that China has ranked at the 9th place in the global innovation rankings. China is now accelerating its transition from a global participant and contributor in science and technology to the status of a pioneer and leader, and has become one of the countries with the fastest growing innovation capacity," he said.
China among front-runners of innovation capacity growth: minister
China among front-runners of innovation capacity growth: minister
The scale of China's core artificial intelligence (AI) industry reached a record high of more than 1.2 trillion yuan (about 179 billion U.S. dollars) in 2025, as the technology is driving transformative changes across traditional sectors, said an industry report released on Tuesday.
Published by the China Internet Network Information Center, the Report on the Development of Generative AI Applications (2026) showed that over the past year, the industry saw rapid growth in computing power, foundational models and talent pool, becoming a crucial driver for cultivating innovation-driven new quality productive forces and building a modern industrial system.
The report also showed that as of June this year, China's intelligent computing power scale reached 2,185 EFLOPS, marking a year-on-year surge of 177 percent. The country's first homegrown 100,000-card AI supercluster has been officially commissioned, with all core software and hardware fully under independent domestic control.
EFLOPS, or ExaFLOPS, is a unit of computing performance, with each unit representing 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second.
As AI applications continue to expand, AI technology has penetrated deeply into sectors such as steel, non-ferrous metals, energy and communications, playing crucial roles in product research and development, quality inspection and customer service, according to the report.
"The evolution from large language models to AI agents marks a new stage in artificial intelligence development. We can see that the focus of AI development is rapidly shifting from mere technological iteration to generating real-world value. AI agents are stepping out of the 'dialogue boxes' on computer screens and entering laboratories, production lines, offices and households. They are becoming deeply embedded in entire business processes such as research, design and manufacturing, which will further drive a systemic transformation in production organization and service supply models," said Wang Peng, director of the China Internet Network Information Center.
The report noted that as of June, there were 10,740 AI-related enterprises in China. Looking ahead, the report projects that AI will emerge as a new growth pole for China's economy, generating many new professions and services.
"In the long run, AI will unlock even greater possibilities and opportunities for us. We need to actively embrace AI to reshape our professional capabilities, using it as a lever to amplify our advantages and expand our boundaries. It is essential to master the literacy required to coexist and co-develop with AI," said Chao Lemen, deputy director of the research center for intelligent information analysis at the Renmin University of China in Beijing.
AI transforms traditional sectors as core industry value hits record high: report
