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Xinlu Liang

President Xi Jinping has called for stronger efforts to draw overseas talent and address flaws in China’s innovation ecosystem, as intensifying tech rivalry pushes Beijing to bolster its global competitiveness.
Xi underscored these priorities on Wednesday as he presented China’s highest scientific honour – the State Pre-eminent Science and Technology Award – to solid-state lithium battery pioneer Chen Liquan and military airborne radar expert Ben De.
Each 2025 laureate received 5 million yuan (about US$736,000) in prize money at the national science assembly held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
The 2026-2030 plan period was a critical phase for building a tech powerhouse, Xi noted, stressing the need for breakthrough innovation to drive Chinese modernisation.
However, this required overcoming entrenched structural hurdles, he said, admitting that China’s tech sector still suffered from “insufficient original innovation capability in certain fields, an irrational talent structure, and low efficiency in tech investment”, alongside institutional bottlenecks that clogged progress.
Xi linked the domestic push to the shifting global power dynamics. With global competition intensifying, “technological strength and innovation capability have increasingly become a nation’s core competitiveness”, he said.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) – driven by data, computing power and algorithms, and rooted in cross-disciplinary breakthroughs like neuroscience and mathematics – presented a “pressing” situation, he cautioned, calling on China to “seize historical opportunities to accelerate high-level self-reliance”.




Xi mapped out a targeted offensive, saying the country would focus closely on frontier sectors like AI, quantum technology and life sciences, key industrial sectors such as integrated circuits and advanced manufacturing, as well as strategic arenas covering deep sea, deep space and deep Earth.
He also called for a forward-looking strategy for major scientific infrastructure, including high-end research instruments, data and academic journals, and the systematic promotion of AI-driven scientific research.
Xi also directly targeted the commercialisation gap, noting that “the low conversion rate of technological achievements [had] always been a prominent problem”.
He called for a robust national technology transfer system to bridge this gap between the laboratory and the market, with a network of concept-verification centres and pilot platforms to prevent early-stage bottlenecks.
Financial oversight would also be revamped to ensure that funds were “both fully invested and better utilised”, successfully balancing an expanding investment scale with increased efficiency, he said.
Turning to human capital and tech governance, Xi called on China to “seize the window of global talent mobility” and proactively recruit outstanding young talent and research teams from overseas.
He also emphasised the need to balance ethics with scientific advancement. China must define clear ethical standards for AI and life sciences to resolve regulatory conflicts, Xi said, while stepping up risk monitoring and emergency responses to seamlessly coordinate hi-tech research and development with high-level national security.


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‘Seize historical opportunities’, the president says as China’s highest scientific honour goes to lithium battery and military radar trailblazers


‘Seize historical opportunities’, the president says as China’s highest scientific honour goes to lithium battery and military radar trailblazers.


Xi Jinping

China’s Xi Jinping calls for innovation system overhaul to beat global tech rivals

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}‘Seize historical opportunities’, the president says as China’s highest scientific honour goes to lithium battery and military radar trailblazers

‘Seize historical opportunities’, the president says as China’s highest scientific honour goes to lithium battery and military radar trailblazers