Building strengths

China has also achieved significant progress in the major technical equipment sector.

The domestically developed C919 aircraft has entered commercial service. China's first domestically built cruise ship is now in operation, and the CR450 high-speed train has rolled off the production line.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), the real economy accelerated integration with the digital economy. Li said China has built the world's largest and most extensive network infrastructure, with 4.598 million 5G base stations in operation.

The 5G technology has been deployed across various fields such as mining, ports, and factories, while the number of connected devices on major industrial internet platforms exceeds 100 million units, Li said. The country has established more than 60 national advanced manufacturing clusters in emerging industries and 23 national innovation demonstration zones.

It is noteworthy that the number of AI enterprises and the scale of the AI industry in China have continued to grow over the past five years. Domestic large models such as DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen take the lead in the global open-source innovation ecosystem.

AI-powered devices such as AI smartphones and AI glasses are rapidly gaining popularity, while industry-specific large models are being applied in various scenarios, according to the MIIT.

Li also emphasized that enterprises' dominant position in technological innovation has been reinforced. "Enterprises' spending on R&D now accounts for more than three quarters of the country's total R&D expenditure. The number of invention patent applications filed by industrial enterprises increased from 907,000 at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20) to 1.244 million last year."