Hunan strides to forefront of scientific, technological innovation

Province's breakthrough projects cover strategic emerging frontier areas

After conducting a recent inspection of Hunan province in Central China, a senior government official encouraged provincial authorities to "focus on doing a great job in scientific and technological innovation" and to continue to work hard on building an advanced manufacturing highland of national importance, a technological innovation highland with core competitiveness, and an inland area for reform and opening-up.

The Government Work Report released during this year's two sessions proposed to further promote the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, and to enhance the overall efficiency of the national innovation system.

It emphasized the significance of optimizing the layout of national scientific and technological forces, promoting the reform of research institutes, exploring new operating models of national laboratories, and enhancing the radiating effect of international and regional scientific and technological innovation centers.

In response, the Hunan Committee of the Communist Party of China and the provincial government pledged to elevate innovation to a core position, fully leveraging the supportive role of scientific and technological innovation and striving to build an innovation highland with core competitiveness.

Manufacturing highland

As a major manufacturing province, Hunan is striving to combine scientific innovation with industrial innovation to promote the upgrading of its manufacturing industry.

On Feb 21, Changsha-based Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology announced the construction of a modern high-altitude intelligent machinery factory covering about 16.67 hectares in Hungary. Zhan Chunxin, chairman and CEO of Zoomlion, said it will promote deep cooperation with the local area, constructing a coordinated, mutually beneficial and localized industrial ecosystem by creating a high-end, intelligent and environmentally friendly machinery production base.

Recently, at Zoomlion's branch in Jakarta, Indonesia, 300 sets of ZE215E type excavators were delivered to customers. As a star product selling well in the Southeast Asian market, the ZE215E excavator has impressed the market with its powerful performance, energy saving and convenient maintenance.

Currently, Zoomlion's crane machinery, concrete machinery and high-altitude operation machinery hold a high market share in Indonesia.

Besides engineering machinery manufacturing companies, Hunan's automotive manufacturing industry relies on technological innovation to realize upgrading. For example, the intelligent ecological factory of GAC Aion in Changsha, a major new energy vehicle arm of automaker GAC Group, has achieved a 52 percent increase in personnel efficiency and a 35 percent increase in production speed through the application of innovative technology. The Changsha factory is now able to roll out a new energy vehicle every 53 seconds.

Hunan Zhuzhou-based enterprise CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive, relying on independent innovation, has completed a series of technological evolutions. The company has transitioned China's electric locomotives from direct current to alternating current type transmission. Its products have shown a great improvement in speed and loads, which is a valuable contribution to advancing the high-speed and heavy-haul railways.

CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive is now exporting electric locomotives, subways, multiple units, engineering maintenance vehicles and other products to 51 countries and regions, covering all continents except Antarctica.

The traction and control system is known as the "heart" and "brain" of rail transit vehicles. Feng Jianghua, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chief engineer of CRRC Zhuzhou Institute, led a research and development team to develop China's first permanent magnet motor for electric vehicles for three years. Their achievement has positioned China as one of the few countries to master high-speed train permanent magnet traction technology.

Core technologies

On Feb 7, Hunan held the launch ceremony for its Top 10 Technological Breakthrough Projects of 2025. These breakthrough projects cover strategic emerging frontier areas such as next-generation information technology, aerospace and ocean technology, new energy, modern agriculture, quantum technology and artificial intelligence.

Projects such as the development of a precision pipeline track control satellite platform based on the Beidou navigation satellite system, a high-performance hydrogen-powered heavy truck for varied scenarios, cultivation of high-yielding hybrid rice varieties, development of high-performance sodium-ion batteries and a high-definition video real-time transmission system were included.

For many years, Hunan has eyed major industrial needs, compiled lists of key core technologies, deployed cutting-edge technologies and achieved a number of original innovations.

In August 2024, the first domestically developed large unmanned transport aircraft SA750U, with a payload of more than 3 metric tons, made its maiden flight. The aircraft was developed by Hunan Shanhe Huayu Aviation Technology. The fulfillment was under the support of the 2022 Top 10 Technological Breakthrough Projects. From conceptual design to the maiden flight, it took only two years and eight months, filling the gap in large unmanned transport aircraft in the commercial 3-ton category.

Hunan has implemented its Top 10 Technological Breakthrough Projects for five consecutive years, bringing together the collaborative efforts of advantageous industrial, academic and research forces from within and outside the province. It has accumulated more than 3 billion yuan ($411 million) in R&D investment, broken through more than 170 core technologies and become one of the most prominent examples of Hunan's scientific and technological innovation achievements.

High-level platforms

Relying on the multiple-level innovative platforms and academic research resources, a large number of innovative and original scientific research achievements have emerged and been successfully applied in the province. In recent years, Hunan's hybrid rice has achieved five consecutive rounds of high-yield increases, with single-season yields surpassing 80 kilograms per hectare. A major new variety of salt-alkali-resistant rice set a high yield record of 38 kg per hectare, and the Fengyou 737 variety rapeseed has been among the popular varieties promoted in the country for 10 consecutive years.

At the Yuelu Mountain Seed Industry Innovative Molecular Breeding Technology Research Center, researcher Li Le placed a plate containing rice DNA samples into a high-throughput gene typing system, which automatically detects valuable information. The upgraded high-throughput system can test thousands of samples at once, increasing efficiency by 100 times. This technology tackles resistance issues of the core parents of super rice, bacterial leaf blight and rice blast diseases. The improved super hybrid rice varieties are disease-resistant and retain high yields.

"If traditional breeding methods were used, the improvement process would take at least eight to 10 years; with molecular breeding technology, it only took two years and nine months," Li said.

Ma Yanqing, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of Hunan Province, said Hunan currently has three national key laboratories, one national technology innovation center, three national engineering technology research centers and nine national breeding centers or improvement subcenters.

Zhou Bin, deputy director of the Department of Science and Technology of Hunan Province, said that to cultivate and build national strategic scientific and technological capabilities, Hunan will strive to create national key laboratories in areas such as cultural and technological integration, while optimizing provincial-level scientific and technological innovation platforms.

Talent cultivation policies

Hunan's talent work group recently issued a document to accelerate the attraction of young talents and promote construction of young people-friendly environments, deploying 18 specific work measures from five aspects such as increasing policy support for young talents to stay in Hunan. The document specifies multitype employment opportunities and entrepreneurial support through measures such as the "retain Hunan talent" special recruitment and "return to Hunan" green channel.

Additionally, Hunan is implementing the "gathering talent in Xiaoxiang" internship and practical activities, recruiting no less than 30,000 internship positions annually for various units. The program is open for applications to university students nationwide and globally.

Currently, the number of national-level scientific and technological talents exceeds 1,000 in Hunan and the number of provincial-level and above high-level scientific and technological talents has surpassed 5,000.

In 2024, the GDP of Hunan increased by 4.8 percent for the whole year, reaching a total of 5.3 trillion. The province has six trillion-yuan-scale industries, and the total number of enterprises with the title of national-level manufacturing industry champions ranks first in China's central region.

In terms of opening-up, the pilot zone for in-depth China-Africa economic and trade cooperation was approved, with trade volume with Africa ranking first in China's central and western region. The number of China-Europe freight trains, Hunan-Guangdong-Africa railway and ship combined transportation and Huaihua-ASEAN freight trains all exceeded 1,000 trips.