Photo: VCG

Throughout the year of 2024, there has been no shortage of posts and videos on social media platforms by bloggers from home or abroad, sharing how they were captivated by China's surging scientific revolution tide, ranging from real-time food delivery by hotel room service robots, driverless artificial intelligent (AI) robots delivering parcels to spherical robots patrolling the street side by side with police officers. 

In a recent milestone, a group of four-legged "Made in China" robotic dogs, designed for tunnel inspections and maintenance tasks, have been put on duty and are now operating in a 6-kilometer underground power tunnel inspection project in Singapore - the first overseas deployment of a Chinese robotic solution in such an application scenario. 

These unique creatures have wooed thousands of netizens after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian shared a video of them on social media in mid-December, calling them "cool."

The "cool" wave of the tech revolution has been unlocking more exciting possibilities across multiple Chinese industries in 2024, a year that is deemed critical for the rapid advancement of China's robotics technology. It, in a broader picture, underscored the explosive progress of new quality productive forces -an emerging key term in China's economic and social axis that is playing an expanding role in driving the country's high-quality development.

A walk-in into manufacturing bases across various Chinese localities also provides insights into how the development of new quality productive forces has been transforming traditional industries while injecting new impetus into driving the country's industrial upgrade. 

To date, a flurry of auto-makers and logistics providers including Geely, BAIC New Energy, and SF Express have been integrating humanoid robots, considered at the forefront of the development of new quality productive forces, into their facilities, the Global Times learned from Hong Kong-listed UBTech Robotics. These robots are being trialed on factory floors to perform tasks like assembly, transportation, testing, and maintenance, making remarkable progress in automation and industrial efficiency improvement in the world's second-largest economy.

In December, the just-concluded Central Work Economic Conference set priorities for economic work in 2025, including ensuring that scientific and technological innovation drives the development of new quality productive forces and builds a modernized industrial system.

As China is steadily marching toward the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30), industry insiders expect that the development of new quality productive forces will serve as a cornerstone of China's long-term strategic vision in the face of a more complicated geopolitical landscape, rising protectionism and global tech supply chain "decoupling." Meanwhile, China's build-up of a host of emerging industries like AI and 5G would also create a new type of global supply and value chains that injects strong momentum and brings more development opportunities to the Global South, analysts stressed. 

Profound impact on economy

During this year's national two sessions in March, the phrase new quality productive forces has become a buzzword among Chinese officials, national lawmakers, and political advisors, with "developing new quality productive forces at a faster pace" listed among the major tasks for 2024 in the Government Work Report for the first time.

More elaborations on the concept, as well as detailed plans and coordinating measures, were released in follow-ups, further highlighting its profound ramifications in the country's economic policymaking and future development course. 

In early December, the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting to analyze and study the economic work of 2025, during which it was noted that new quality productive forces have developed steadily this year.

According to industry insiders, scientific and technological innovation is the core of the new quality productive forces. In this regard, China has achieved numerous monumental milestones in sci-tech innovation this year in a variety of sectors, such as semiconductor, quantum computing, telecom technology, AI, low-altitude economy, biomedicine, new energy, and large aircraft manufacturing. 

It is important to sustain this homegrown technological climb-up momentum, according to analysts, and they expect the 15th Five-year Plan (2026-2030) to continue prioritizing the development of new quality productive forces, listing it as both an urgent task and a long-term vision. 

Pan Helin, a member of the Expert Committee for the Information and Communication Economy under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, told the Global Times that the accumulation of these technological edges is crucial to fueling China's ongoing industrial transformation and upgrading. It is also conducive to the formation of new economic drivers and new business models, which are all decisive elements in buttressing China's high-quality development course in the years to come. 

The accelerated efforts in the development of new quality productive forces also come as Western countries show no sign of retreating from technological suppression against China. 

Against the backdrop, industry insiders called for more inputs in independent innovation and a strong spirit of self-reliance in core technologies, so that the country will be less vulnerable to any malicious attempts to curb its development and will have a greater say in international technological standard-setting. 

In terms of humanoid robots which integrate a wide range of cutting-edge full-stack AI technologies, Chinese players may start late as the technology and products were initially developed in countries like the US and Japan a decade ago. But this year, Chinese humanoid robot companies have achieved remarkable innovations, establishing themselves as global leaders in both robot products and applications, UBTech Robotics told the Global Times. 

Global contribution 

The Government Work Report delivered in March 2024 stressed that China will pool the country's strategic scientific and technological strength and non-governmental innovation resources to make breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields and step up research on disruptive and frontier technologies.

Highlighting the country's institutional advantage, Hua Rongqi, a Beijing-based AI entrepreneur, told the Global Times that China is perhaps the most efficient in mobilizing resources nationwide to enhance its capacity for innovation across the board. He said that this advantage is particularly palpable in the generative AI industry which is in a white-hot global race.

At the same time, China excels in applying these technologies to real-world scenarios, and also is home to the world's most efficient and cost-effective supply chain alongside a deep pool of talent, which will all propel the development of new quality productive forces, Hua added.

Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Security Technology, told the Global Times that China's stepped-up efforts are poised to make greater contributions to global technological progress and economic development, with its innovation-driven development model offering valuable experience for other countries to draw upon.

"On the one hand, industrial digitalization will create more new business models and growth dynamics, thereby generating great opportunities for global investors to tap into the country's expanding market. On the other hand, more and more countries will show great interest in engaging with technological cooperation taking account of China's growing technological prowess," Zhou explained. 

Chinese industries related to the development of new quality productive forces have increasingly risen to become a magnet to foreign investors this year. 

In the first 11 months, foreign direct investment in the country's high-tech manufacturing reached 82.53 billion yuan, accounting for 11 percent of the national total, data released by the Ministry of Commerce showed. 

According to UBTech Robotics, China's fast-lane development of new quality productive forces has also elevated the global standing and influence of Chinese enterprises and rendered them with more business opportunities in the global market. The company to date has collaborated with local partners to apply robotics solutions in countries such as Thailand, Dubai, South Korea, Japan, and Germany.  

Huang Lingxiao, overseas marketing manager of DEEP Robotics, the Chinese company that provides robotic dogs for tunnel maintenance tasks in Singapore, told the Global Times on Thursday that as developed nations like Singapore upgrade their industrial infrastructure through automation and digitization, this creates enormous opportunities for innovative solutions from Chinese robotics companies.