Since the beginning of this year, traditional industries such as textiles and steel have been revitalized through technological upgrading, while emerging industries including new energy vehicles, power batteries and photovoltaics have accelerated their scale-up to form globally leading advantages.

Future industries such as quantum technology and biomanufacturing are being rapidly deployed to seize the high ground in technology and industry.

This "three-industry" approach constitutes a tiered, coordinated industrial system.

Experts believe that within this tiered framework, traditional industries form the foundation, emerging industries serve as growth engines, and future industries represent the commanding heights.

It is necessary to open up circular channels among the three tiers and build a modern industrial echelon featuring "a solid foundation in traditional sectors, substantial scale in emerging sectors, and strong reserves in future sectors."

Traditional industries revitalized

Since the beginning of this year, China has focused on advancing the digital-intelligent, green and high-end transformation of traditional industries, achieving a series of impressive results.

The intelligent manufacturing foundation has been continuously consolidated.

Currently, the country has built more than 56,000 basic-level, over 9,000 advanced-level and more than 500 excellence-level smart factories, cultivated 15 lighthouse-level smart factories covering steel, food, textiles and many other traditional sectors, and the penetration rate of artificial intelligence (AI) technology among manufacturing enterprises above designated size has exceeded 30%.

Inspur Digital Enterprise General Manager Zhang Jinlong believes that "AI plus manufacturing" has moved from isolated pilot projects to deep penetration across the entire process, covering key links such as R&D and design, production and manufacturing, quality inspection, equipment maintenance, supply chain coordination and operations management.
Inspur Digital Enterprise is taking AI-native development as its main thrust, building three major software systems for management, industry and platforms, integrating commercial AI and industrial AI capabilities, and deeply embedding AI into all scenarios of enterprise operations and production.

The trend of pursuing green and new development is evident.

Zhang Shucui, head and researcher of the Materials Industry Research Institute at the China Center for Information Industry Development, introduced that at the national level, the output value of green factories accounts for 22% of total manufacturing output, and key energy-intensive industries have achieved significant technological leaps.

The high-end upgrading of traditional industries is accelerating the improvement of corporate profitability.

In the first seven months of this year, the added value of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing accounted for 17.9% and 37.2% of the total added value of industrial enterprises above designated size, respectively, up 1.5 and 1.7 percentage points year on year.

"Overall, traditional industries are restructuring production processes with digital-intelligent technology, reshaping their development foundation with green technology, and moving toward the high end of industry through innovation-driven development, injecting strong transformation momentum into high-quality industrial development," said Zhao Gang, president of the Sage Industrial Research Institute.

Emerging industries lead the way

In July this year, China's new energy vehicle monthly sales share exceeded 60% for the first time, and the cumulative share surpassed 50% for the first time.

The global layout of new energy vehicles has shifted from merely exporting products to building factories overseas and localizing R&D, production, sales and operations, achieving the transition from "product going global" to "capacity taking root" overseas, demonstrating the ability of Chinese automakers to establish themselves in global markets.

Zhang Shucui stated that China's emerging industries, especially the "new three" exports, have moved from scale leadership to all-round leadership in technology, standards and industrial chain ecosystems.

This is a landmark achievement of new industrialization and by no means an accidental success of a single product, but rather the fruit of China's complete, independently controllable industrial chain.

"China's emerging industry development presents three highlights," Zhao Gang introduced.

Core product technologies have achieved leapfrog breakthroughs.

For example, Chinese electric vehicle companies have firmly mastered core technologies in the "three electrics" of battery, motor and electronic control, as well as intelligent systems such as chips and algorithms.

The dominant capacity of emerging industry chains has strengthened.

For example, the power battery industry has moved from scale expansion to a new stage of high-quality advancement, forming a complete industrial chain covering basic materials, cell manufacturing, system integration and recycling.

Global market share has risen across the board.

Overall, China's emerging industries are driving industrial upgrading through technological innovation and expanding market space through global layout, injecting strong momentum into high-quality industrial development.

Wang Weiming, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stated that the next step will be to persist in innovation leadership, strengthen research on key core technologies, and accelerate the iterative upgrading of technologies and products.

Application guidance will be strengthened to create a batch of typical application scenarios and accelerate the large-scale promotion of new technologies and products.

Construction of high-level carriers will be reinforced,优质 enterprises will be cultivated in a tiered manner, new track cultivation in national high-tech zones will be strengthened, and national demonstration bases for emerging industry development will be established.

Future industries reach new heights

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently released the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Information and Communication Industry," proposing to strengthen innovation leadership, accelerate research on 6G core technologies, and continue conducting 6G technology trials.

Since the beginning of this year, future industries such as 6G, quantum technology and biomanufacturing have continued to achieve new breakthroughs.

Zhao Gang believes that, overall, China's future industry layout is becoming increasingly clear, accumulating strength through "deep squatting" in basic research, reaching new heights through "jumping" in frontier innovation, and taking root through "landing" of achievement transformation.

A virtuous cycle from source innovation to industrial application is accelerating its formation.

The "first move" in future industries is accelerating.

Zhang Shucui introduced that around key tracks such as quantum technology, relevant departments have deployed more than 100 future industry innovation "open competition" research tasks.

Relevant data shows that quantum computing has reduced computation solving time by more than 80% in scenarios such as new materials and electronic design automation (EDA), and can be used for vaccine sequence design and brain-computer interface neural decoding.

The industrial ecosystem has basically taken shape.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant departments have built a future industry foresight platform, formulated development measures for key tracks, and carried out monitoring and evaluation in key areas, having laid out more than 85 provincial-level future industry pilot zones across the country, forming a spatial pattern of "national coordination, local pilots and track subdivision."

Regarding the promotion of the tiered "three-industry" framework, Zhao Gang believes that traditional industries should adopt precise measures, promote technological upgrading, and accelerate digital-intelligent, green and high-end development.

Emerging industries should strengthen and complement their chains, accelerate research on core technologies, and promote independent controllability and global layout of industrial chains and supply chains.

Future industries require sustained effort, building an inclusive and prudent innovation environment, increasing investment in basic research, deepening the construction of pilot testing platforms and application scenarios, and promoting breakthroughs in frontier technology innovation and the development of future industries.