Guangzhou has achieved a remarkable milestone by winning 149 awards in the 2024 Guangdong Science and Technology Prize, accounting for 65.6% of the total awards in the province. This marks the fifth consecutive year the city has topped the list.
The winning projects highlight Guangzhou’s strong industrial focus, with nearly 90% of the 113 awarded projects centered on strategic sectors such as biomedical and health, semiconductors and integrated circuits, intelligent connected vehicles, as well as emerging fields like intelligent unmanned systems and cell and gene technology.
A standout project, awarded the Special Prize for Scientific and Technological Progress, is the "Key Technologies and Equipment Development for Ultra-Wide, Deeply Buried Steel-Shell Concrete Immersed Tube Cross-Sea Tunnel Construction." Developed by Guangdong Highway Construction Co., Ltd. and the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link Management Center, this innovation has been applied to the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link project, cutting construction time by 18 months and generating over RMB 5 billion in economic benefits.
Guangzhou also excelled in key categories such as the Technology Invention Award, Scientific and Technological Achievement Promotion Award, and Science and Technology Cooperation Award, securing 13, 16, and 4 awards respectively—accounting for 81%, 76%, and 80% of the provincial totals.
Industrial relevance was a dominant theme, with 13 projects in intelligent unmanned systems, 37 in biomedicine, and 32 in AI and IT—collectively representing 61% of the awards. Notably, Prof. Li Yuanqing’s team from Pazhou Lab won the First Prize in the Technology Invention Award for their "Multimodal Brain-Computer Interface Technology and Applications," a project exploring industrial applications since 2019.
AI integration was evident across sectors, from healthcare to petrochemicals and power grids. For instance, Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center’s "Key Technologies and Applications of Intelligent Cataract Prevention and Treatment System" won the Provincial Science and Technology Progress First Prize.
Corporate innovation also shone, with 26 Guangzhou-based enterprises leading award-winning projects—an 18.18% year-on-year increase. Guangdong Power Grid claimed three awards, including a First Prize for its "Intelligent Unmanned Inspection Technology for Multi-Domain Power Grids," which integrates drones, robotic dogs, and underwater robots to boost efficiency and slash costs by over 80%.
Young talent made a strong showing, with 16 recipients of the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Award. Among them, Prof. Wang Meng’s team from Sun Yat-sen University discovered a nickel-based high-temperature superconductor, published in *Nature* in 2023.
Key institutions like South China University of Technology and Sun Yat-sen University dominated the awards, with 40 and 20 prizes respectively, while Southern Medical University secured three First Prizes in critical areas such as infectious disease control and biomaterials.