In 2025, the Chinese economy has forged ahead under pressure, moving toward innovation and excellence, delivering a report card marked by substantial quality and strong resilience. A closer look at the data reveals that "advancing through innovation" has become a distinct characteristic—the intensity of national R&D spending surpassed 2.8% for the first time, exceeding the average level of OECD countries; the country's ranking in the Global Innovation Index historically entered the top ten. This is not merely a numerical leap but a vivid portrayal of the deepening implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, showcasing the firm strides of China's economy in transforming its growth drivers and enhancing quality. In recent years, China has placed scientific and technological innovation at the core of its national development strategy, demonstrating prominent features such as high strategic positioning, large-scale investment, strong systemic support, and high conversion efficiency. The continued increase in R&D intensity in 2025 signals a further optimization of innovation resource allocation across society. Sustained and stable high-intensity investment, coupled with systematic support from national laboratories and major scientific installations, has enabled China to gradually build a pattern of leading in certain areas and keeping pace overall in frontier fields like artificial intelligence, quantum information, and biomanufacturing, injecting a vital source of dynamism into high-quality development and laying a solid foundation for cultivating new quality productive forces.
The deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation is catalyzing a series of positive transformations. In 2025, the value-added of China's digital product manufacturing industry above the designated size grew by 9.3% compared to the previous year, with the output of key products such as servers and industrial robots experiencing rapid growth, marking a shift of the manufacturing sector toward greater intelligence and sophistication. Taking new energy vehicles as an example, their share of domestic new car sales exceeded 50%, a milestone figure that reflects not only the popularization of green consumption concepts but also an intuitive manifestation of China's competitive advantage in the global green and low-carbon arena. The rapid growth of emerging and future industries, accelerating in parallel with the intelligent and green transformation of traditional industries, jointly paints a grand picture of "renewing the existing stock" and "the rise of new increments" within China's industrial system.
The ultimate value of innovation is reflected in the marketplace. Currently, China is focusing on improving the system for the transfer and commercialization of scientific and technological achievements, by building an ecosystem involving multi-party collaboration among government, industry, academia, research, and end-users, to vigorously propel research findings from the "laboratory" to the "production line." The virtuous cycle of "science-technology-industry-finance" is accelerating its formation, meaning more financial resources can be precisely channeled to fuel the innovation process, providing more potent funding support for industrial transformation and upgrading. This cycle not only speeds up the productization and industrialization of technology but also, by continuously addressing "bottleneck" risks in key links, secures a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage for Chinese manufacturing in international competition.
Standing at a new starting point and looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period, consolidating and expanding the advantages in scientific and technological innovation is crucial. We must not only consolidate existing strengths in areas like the digital economy and green economy but also proactively lay out new tracks such as commercial aerospace, low-altitude economy, and humanoid robots, forming a development pattern characterized by "breakthroughs in multiple technologies, sequential industrial gradients, and deep cross-border integration." This requires further strengthening the role of enterprises as the main actors in innovation, deepening the integration of industry and education, and facilitating the smoother flow of factors such as talent, technology, and capital, thereby infusing the real economy with a continuous stream of new dynamism.
Those who understand the trends are wise; those who master the trends win. In the current era of unprecedented global technological competition, pursuing innovation is equivalent to pursuing development, and planning for innovation is planning for the future. The "advancement through innovation" of the Chinese economy is an essential path to enhancing total factor productivity and shaping core competitiveness through innovation-driven development. As long as we uphold the core position of innovation in the overall context of China's modernization, continuously improve the innovation system, and stimulate the vitality of talent, we will certainly be able to continually open up new fields and tracks for development, and seize the initiative, gain advantages, and secure the future in the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation. (Zhen Hao)
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