How should young people navigate their own path in this era? In today's China, young employees at state-owned enterprises are providing a resounding answer through their actions. On the challenging road to promoting high-quality economic development, a group of daring and enterprising youth are immersing themselves in the vast fields of new energy, emerging industries, and advanced equipment. They are leaving their mark deep in the Gobi Desert, on the front lines of scientific research, and within manufacturing plants, allowing the flower of youth to take root and bloom where the country needs it most.
**Aiming for the Nation: Anchoring Youth's Course Through Choice**
Choice often determines a person's future direction. For many young people, it is precisely the choice to gain experience at the grassroots level that has given their lives a clear course.
In Santanghu Town, Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County, Hami City, Xinjiang, rows of wind turbines hundreds of meters tall stand on the endless Gobi landscape, while dark photovoltaic panels shimmer like a sea. This is the country's first "desert-gobi-wasteland" new energy transmission base—the Xinjiang Tianshan North Piedmont Gobi Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power Base. With new energy installations accounting for over 70% of its capacity, it can transmit more than 21.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually to Chongqing.
When construction began in 2023, the area was desolate for dozens of kilometers. That year, dozens of university graduates from across the country packed their bags and arrived amidst the sands, forming a "Desert-Gobi-Wasteland" Major Base Assault Youth Task Force. Their average age was only 28, but they all made the same choice: to advance westward and shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding national energy security.
"We knew it would be tough, we knew it would be exhausting, but the sweat we shed contributes to ensuring national energy security, and we find deep satisfaction in that," said Ma Zijian, a member of the Youth Task Force from Xinjiang Huadian Tianshan Power Generation Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Huadian Xinjiang Company.
By the end of 2025, China's cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power is projected to exceed 1.8 billion kilowatts. The transformation of the new energy industry is profoundly reshaping the global energy landscape and supply chain system, generating employment demand across the entire chain from planning and design, equipment manufacturing, to construction, operation, and maintenance. More young people, like the members of the Youth Task Force, are finding their path to realizing personal value on the front lines of energy supply.
Only by keeping the nation's major concerns in mind can one proceed steadily and go far. For young people, the grassroots level is precisely where they can realize themselves and pour out their passion.
**Riding the Momentum: Expanding Stages for Growth with Opportunity**
As industrial upgrading and national strategic layouts continue to advance, the landscape of frontline grassroots work is undergoing profound changes. Positions that were once seldom sought after have now become hubs for new technologies and industries, opening up broad horizons for young people to apply their talents.
Looking back today, members of the "post-90s" Luo Yang Youth Task Force for Hydrogen Energy UAVs at AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Industrial (Group) Co., Ltd. admit that everything has exceeded their initial expectations.
"We started exploring simply because the domestic hydrogen energy UAV field was a blue ocean. We never imagined this long-endurance, silent hybrid hydrogen-powered UAV could actually progress to productization, let alone that it would coincide with the wave of the low-altitude economy," said team member Tang Peng, a graduate of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
Starting from scratch in 2022 to explore hydrogen power technology, they have now developed a product-grade UAV integrating hydrogen energy, lithium batteries, and solar power—a "tri-energy" system. They have set a domestic record of 30 hours of continuous flight for a long-endurance, silent hybrid hydrogen-powered UAV.
Today, their UAVs are not only proving highly effective in domestic fields like forest patrol but have also become a shining "Chinese name card" in the low-altitude economy race.
Catching the favorable wind, they soar to great heights. While repeatedly sending hydrogen-powered aircraft into the sky, the Hydrogen Energy UAV Luo Yang Youth Task Force is itself riding the spring breeze of the times. According to forecasts by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, China's low-altitude economy market size is expected to exceed 35 trillion yuan by 2035. Below a thousand meters, opportunities are limitless. This blue ocean of employment is opening its arms to young people, waiting for them to explore infinite possibilities in a vast world.
**Tempered into Steel: Honing Exceptional Skills Through Perseverance**
The grassroots frontline has always been the best classroom for tempering talent and forging key personnel. By settling down, taking root in their posts, enduring solitude, and delving deeply into research, young people are honing exceptional skills through day-in, day-out perseverance.
In the heavy-duty gas turbine manufacturing workshop located in Deyang, Sichuan, the precision casting production line operates around the clock. Young members of the Dongfang Turbine precision casting technology team repeatedly optimize parameters to enable the turbine blades of heavy-duty gas turbines to withstand the challenges of high temperature, high pressure, high rotational speed, and high corrosion during operation.
"Turbine blades are the core components of a gas turbine. We were previously constrained by foreign technology. The technology is complex, the precision casting process is long, and over 160 influencing factors are intertwined. We had to find the optimal solution amidst contradictions," said team member Zhang Qiongyuan.
Upon learning that Dongfang Electric Group was establishing a laboratory in Deyang to tackle "bottleneck" technological challenges, a group of ambitious young graduates from universities like Tsinghua University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, and Xi'an Jiaotong University flocked to the site. For over a decade since, they have dedicated their youthful passion to laboratories and workshops, determined to overcome this challenge in the equipment manufacturing industry.
After more than ten years of relentless research, in 2020, China's first domestically developed F-class 50-megawatt heavy-duty gas turbine (G50) achieved full-load operation for the first time. In 2023, this model successfully achieved grid-connected power generation and officially entered commercial operation.
Zhang Qiongyuan still remembers the day the G50 achieved full-load operation. Team members hugged each other and wept, followed by a steady stream of awards and good news. "It was as if a breath we had been holding in our chests was finally released. For researchers, there's no greater sense of accomplishment than seeing your own research bear fruit," he said.
A strong youth makes a strong nation; capable youth drive powerful development. From mega-projects laying a solid foundation for development to technological breakthroughs opening future tracks, from safeguarding people's livelihoods and protecting the well-being of millions to serving the broader picture and fulfilling missions, central state-owned enterprises shoulder heavy responsibilities and build platforms. They attract successive groups of young students to throw themselves into grassroots work and pursue their dreams for the future, writing a youthful answer on the questionnaire of the times—one that is worthy of their prime years and their mission.
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