New Highlights of Regional Development | How to Overcome the Obstacle in the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements—— One of the New Observations on the Integrated Development of the Yangtze River Delta: Development | Scientific and Technological Achievements | Yangtze River Delta

He specifically pointed out that Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region not only need to provide high-quality products, but also need to provide high-level technological supply to support the high-quality development of the country.

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the rise of regional integration development in the Yangtze River Delta to a national strategy. Recently, reporters conducted research in the Yangtze River Delta region and found that aiming to build world-class industrial clusters such as quantum technology, artificial intelligence, biopharmaceuticals, and new energy vehicles, the three provinces and one city have laid out innovation chains around the industrial chain, worked together to tackle key core technologies, and accelerated the transformation of technology supply into innovation momentum.

How to better connect supply and demand? How to value technological achievements? How to achieve cross regional transformation? What institutional and institutional obstacles still need to be overcome? Focusing on the deep-seated problem of overcoming the obstacles in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, the reporter conducted research.

"Here you can hear the new pulse of the world's quantum industry"

In early summer, reporters were conducting research in Hefei High tech Zone and heard a story about "Quantum Street": a short street several hundred meters long gathers dozens of quantum enterprises, thanks to market-oriented high-quality technology supply.

A white metal can hangs from the ceiling, connected to several control system chassis through countless wire harnesses, and data is bouncing on the screen on the other side... On May 31st, at the Quantum Street of Science and Technology's Keda Shield Quantum Technology Co., Ltd., reporters saw the official launch of the 176-bit "Zuchong Zhi" quantum computing cloud platform, which is open to the world. This is also the first cloud platform in the world with the potential to achieve quantum superiority on the superconducting quantum route.

The picture shows a superconducting quantum computer. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Nuo

"Zuchongzhi" is a quantum computer independently developed by China, born at the Hefei National Center for Micro scale Material Science, University of Science and Technology of China, located more than ten kilometers away from "Quantum Street". In recent years, researchers here have collaborated with research institutions such as the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics and the Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to continuously tackle quantum technology.

"Practical quantum computing is a cutting-edge technology full of unknowns in the world. We have collaborated with dozens of research institutions in the Yangtze River Delta around national and market demands, showcasing our strengths and greatly accelerating the process of scientific research and industrialization," said Professor Zhu Xiaobo from the University of Science and Technology of China.

Quantum computers, mobile quantum satellite ground stations, quantum diamond atomic force microscopes... One by one, technological achievements have emerged from laboratories and been transformed into products on the "Quantum Street", nurturing enterprises such as Guodong Quantum, Benyuan Quantum, and Guoyi Quantum. Industry insiders commented that "you can hear the new pulse of the world's quantum industry here.".

High quality technological achievements are like excellent seeds in the industry. According to research conducted by reporters, guided by "integration" and "high quality", the Yangtze River Delta region is focusing on solving problems such as dispersed scientific research forces and low-level industrial duplication. It is laying out innovation chains around the construction of world-class industrial clusters such as quantum technology, robotics, energy-saving and new energy vehicles, and new displays, strengthening policy coordination, and supporting the integration and innovation of large, medium, and small enterprises driven by leading enterprises as the main chain leaders.

According to data from the Yangtze River Delta Regional Cooperation Office, since the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta became a national strategy in 2018, as of the end of 2022, the first batch of 15 joint research and development plans for the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Community have been launched and implemented. Established and operated the Yangtze River Delta National Technology Innovation Center, which has introduced 287 project managers and jointly built 278 enterprise joint innovation centers.

According to the statistics of the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Community Construction Office, in 2022, there were 116000 high-tech enterprises gathered in the Yangtze River Delta, of which 233 were listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, accounting for 46.51% of the national total.

Digging for treasures in the laboratory to tap into the needs of industrial parks

"2.6 million yuan was sold!" On the morning of May 22, after many rounds of intense bidding, the scientific research achievement "Non aqueous sol gel preparation method of highly dispersed nano alumina" from Xuancheng, Anhui, was sold at the 5th Scientific and Technological Achievements Auction of G60 Scientific and Technological Innovation Corridor in the Yangtze River Delta. The transaction volume of this auction exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time.

On May 25th, the nine cities of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor in the Yangtze River Delta jointly issued a declaration on science and technology innovation ecology in Shanghai. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gong Wen

The first session was worth 104 million yuan, the fourth session was worth 5.018 billion yuan, and this session reached 10.968 billion yuan. The rapid growth in transaction volume has excited Guo Shuqing, Deputy Director of the Joint Office of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor in the Yangtze River Delta.

There are various challenges and challenges in the transformation process from laboratory achievements to products in the market, such as valuation of scientific and technological achievements, market demand docking, and cross regional transformation of scientific and technological achievements. In order to promote scientific and technological achievements to enter the market as soon as possible, the Yangtze River Delta has launched a series of reform measures, and the auction of scientific research achievements is one of them.

"If a technological achievement wants to be transformed, the first thing to know is how much market value it has. Auctions can solve this problem." A researcher in Anhui said that it is also necessary to find the market demand side, and a new profession of "technical managers" has emerged.

Yesterday I was digging for treasures in the laboratory, and today I am digging for needs in the industrial park. This is the daily work scene of Huang Xuxin, one of the first technical managers in Anhui Province. "Our main job is to accurately connect technological achievements with enterprise needs, ultimately achieving cooperation between supply and demand," he said.

The Yangtze River Delta region has joined hands to overcome multiple obstacles, crossing the "last mile" of technological achievement transformation, and the technology transaction volume has been increasing year by year. The reporter learned from the Construction Office of the Yangtze River Delta Science and Technology Innovation Community that in 2022, more than 25000 technology contracts were exported between the Yangtze River Delta region, with a technology transaction amount of 186.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 112.5%.

Need to establish a risk sharing mechanism for scientific and technological achievements

Several experts interviewed by reporters believe that in recent years, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements in the Yangtze River Delta has entered the fast lane, but further reforms in the system and mechanism are still needed to promote it.

In the spinning production workshop of Jiangsu Solide New Materials Group Co., Ltd., the reporter met Chen Shichang, an associate professor at Zhejiang University of Technology who was inspecting the production equipment. He was actually the "Vice President of Science and Technology" of the company. In 2020, Chen Shichang was hired by Jiangsu Sulid Group and regularly collaborated with enterprise technical personnel to develop new products across provinces. Last month, they made significant breakthroughs and the company's new production line is expected to start construction.

"Our cooperation has entered a substantive stage, but the transformation and implementation of achievements still face many difficulties." Chen Shichang said, "As technology achievements move from laboratories to production lines, product production capacity needs to be enlarged from hundred tons to thousands or tens of thousands of tons. It takes some time to generate economic benefits, and there are also risks such as market fluctuations.".

The picture shows Chen Shichang, an associate professor at Zhejiang University of Technology, conducting experiments related to the production of high-performance polyester fibers in the laboratory. Photo by Zhu Han, journalist from Xinhua News Agency

Currently, universities are establishing a number of new research and development institutions in the Yangtze River Delta region to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. "The scientific and technological achievements of universities and colleges are mostly in the conceptual, prototype, and sample stages, and enterprises need mature scientific and technological achievements that can be directly produced on a large scale." Jin Aimin, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Research Office of the Shanghai Institute of Science and Technology, said that this "supply-demand difference" will inevitably cause transformation risks, and a mechanism for sharing scientific and technological achievements risks needs to be established.

In addition, according to research conducted by reporters, a technology trading platform has been established in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, but the collaborative linkage is not enough. Interviewees suggest promoting the formation of a cross regional, cross industry, and networked achievement transfer and transformation service system.

The reporter learned from the press conference on the achievements of integrated development in the Yangtze River Delta held in Hefei, Anhui on June 6th that the three provinces and one city in the Yangtze River Delta will improve the cross regional collaborative research mechanism, focus on integrated circuits, biomedicine, artificial intelligence and other fields, and promote the implementation of joint research and development plan projects. Accelerate the construction of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor in the Yangtze River Delta and the Shanghai Nanjing Industrial Innovation Belt, and build the Yangtze River Delta National Science and Technology Achievement Transformation and Transfer Demonstration Zone Alliance.

Planning | Poster Production: Wei Guanyu

Produced domestically by Xinhua News Agency