The 2025 International Congress of Basic Science (ICBS 2025) officially kicked off on July 13 in Beijing. Six preeminent scientists, Samuel Chao Chung Ting, Steven Chu, David Gross, Robert Tarjan, Shigefumi Mori, and George Lusztig, were honored with the 2025 Basic Science Lifetime Award.

CGTN reporter Liu Jiaxin spoke with Steven Chu, the distinguished recipient of the 2025 Basic Science Lifetime Award, a Nobel laureate in Physics (1997) and the first scientist to serve as U.S. Secretary of Energy. Chu shared profound insights on transitioning from laboratory research to high-stakes politics, the vital need for China-U.S. scientific collaboration and the existential challenge of climate change.