Editor's note: Central China connects the east with the west and links the south to the north, whose economic output accounts for one fifth of China, and enjoys great development potential. In the past five years, by implementing the new development concept, building the new development pattern, and continuously enhancing its comprehensive strength and competitiveness, Central China has opened up a new situation for the rise of China's central region. Starting today, we, together with HICC, are launching a series bilingual coverage with the theme of "Strivingto Create a New Situation in the Rise of China's Central Region - Achievements of Central China in Pursuing High-quality Development in Past 5 Years". Here is the first episode: Create new engines for innovative development.
Hanging in the sky and "flying" across the city, China's first suspended aerial track train, Optics Valley Air Rail, looks futuristic. With the support of a series of preferential policies for innovation, the Optics Valley in Wuhan city of Central China's Hubei province has attracted 16 thousand optoelectronic information companies, whose optoelectronic information industry has already exceeded 500 billion yuan.
China's first suspended aerial track train, Optics Valley Air Rail. [Photo/Hubei Daily]
Can you imagine that one day you can create AIGC images, applications, resumes, etc., with just voice commands? At the China Speech Valley in Hefei city of Central China's Anhui province, this "black technology" is impressive. With over 2 thousand settled companies and an annual output value of more than 200 billion yuan, the China Speech Valley has formed a new generation of information technology industrial cluster with intelligent voice and AI industry as the core.
From the Optics Valley to the Speech Valley, in recent years, Central China has been accelerating the gathering of factors for innovation-oriented development, making its capacity for sci-tech innovation continuously enhanced.
By optimizing and restructuring 40 national key laboratories, and advancing the development of 12 major national sci-tech infrastructure projects, Central China is getting stronger in generating innovation momentum for high-quality development. So far, a series of major breakthroughs have been made in core technologies such as quantum communication, autonomous security computers, industrial mother-machines, etc. And the industrialization of such achievements has been accelerated.
Volkswagen Anhui MEB factory. [Photo/Xinhua]
A fleet of large trucks islining up to enter the Volkswagen Anhui MEB factory for transporting cargo. In the workshop, the AGV robots are working in an orderly manner, the European orders are being processed here and the finished cargo are waiting for delivery.
Within just two and a half years, Volkswagen Group has built a new plant for intelligently-connected electric vehicles in Hefei, and has carried out comprehensive cooperation with a number of Chinese enterprises in electrification, automatic driving, and batteries. In 2023, the output of new energy vehicles in Anhui reached 868 thousand, an increase of 60.5 percent year on year.
Self-driving bus made by Yutong Group in Zhengzhou. [Photo/dahe.cn]
Automobile industry in Anhui, heavy industry in Hunan, electronic industry in Hubei, aviation industry in Jiangxi, etc., such influential brands have been well developed among the manufacturing industry in Central China. Now, Central China has been accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system, with the added value of its manufacturing industry jumping from 6.1 trillion yuan in 2019 to 6.8 trillion yuan in 2023, accounting for about one-fifth of China.
Innovation creates huge potential for high-quality development. From 2019 to 2023, Central China's GDP jumped from 21.8 trillion yuan to 27 trillion yuan. Henan, Hubei and Hunan ranked among the top 10 in China in terms of economic aggregate. (Chinese source: Henan Daily Reporter: Chen Weiwei and Yan Fujing and Wang Yueyang Translator: Yang Jiaxin Proofreader: Li Wenjing and Zhao Hanqing)
