High-end manufacturing, the digital economy and modern services contributed more than 40 percent of China's economic growth in the first nine months of 2026, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said, pointing to gains in robotics, pharmaceuticals and electric vehicles.
China's economy grew 4.6 percent in the first nine months of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, official data showed.
Chinese open-source AI models have been downloaded more than 10 billion times worldwide, while Chinese firms accounted for more than 90 percent of global humanoid robot shipments, the NDRC said.
Overseas licensing deals for Chinese-developed drugs carried a combined potential value of 130 billion U.S. dollars in the first three quarters on 2026, nearly matching the total for all of 2025, the agency said.
New energy vehicles, including electric and plug-in hybrid models, accounted for 53.6 percent of new vehicle sales in China over the same period.
Value added in high-tech manufacturing grew nine percentage points faster than overall industrial value added at major firms, while equipment manufacturing grew 4.9 points faster.
Value added in services rose 5.2 percent from a year earlier, and the NDRC put the size of China's data industry at more than 6 trillion yuan, or roughly 900 billion U.S. dollars.
New growth drivers account for over 40 pct of China’s economic growth: NDRC
