Zhongguancun in Beijing is abuzz with innovation, pulsing with the momentum of high-quality development. Accounting for less than four percent of the city's total area, the innovation hub contributes approximately one-third of Beijing's gross regional product.

Cutting-edge scientific and technological achievements are emerging at an accelerated pace, and the momentum for innovation continues to rise. More than 200 domestically developed large language models have been nurtured there, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the national total. Breakthroughs continue to be made in frontier tech fields such as quantum science and artificial intelligence.

Innovation entities are thriving with robust vitality. More than 90 unicorn enterprises have emerged from this area, becoming a new driving force for industrial development. In 2025, the total revenue of Zhongguancun-based enterprises was estimated to exceed the 10-trillion-yuan (about $1.42 trillion) mark for the first time, fully demonstrating the leading role of this innovation highland.

President Xi Jinping has always cared about Zhongguancun's development. In September 2013, the Political Bureau of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee held a group study in Zhongguancun. Presiding over the group study, Xi stressed the importance of science and technology in enhancing national strength, saying that innovation is a global trend and also a need inside the country.

Entering the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the coordinated development of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region has been further promoted.

Beijing's edge in scientific and technological innovation should be combined with Tianjin's strength in advanced manufacturing research and development, Xi said, calling for strengthening joint efforts to achieve breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields.

Xi urged efforts to help eligible areas in Hebei absorb scientific and technological spillovers from Beijing and Tianjin and facilitate the transfer of industries. He also called for building the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region into a national pacesetter in opening up.

Instead of developing alone, Beijing has fully leveraged its role as a hub of technological innovation and strengthened coordination with Tianjin and Hebei.

So far, Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have jointly funded over 220 basic research cooperation projects and established innovation consortiums to pool synergies. In-depth cross-regional industrial collaboration has been advanced, fueling the vigorous growth of new productive forces.

The intelligent connected vehicle industry has formed a "one-hour supporting circle," where over 300 key component enterprises across the region have been seamlessly integrated into the supply chain. It has become a norm for auto parts to be delivered the afternoon after an order is placed in the morning.

At the recently concluded Central Economic Work Conference, the CPC Central Committee unveiled a new major deployment centering on "upholding innovation-driven development and accelerating the cultivation and expansion of new growth drivers."

It also decided to expand the scope of the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center to cover the entire Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Wan Zhe, a professor at Beijing Normal University, said that the expansion of the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center marks a new phase in China's sci-tech innovation strategy, shifting from individual breakthroughs to a regional integrated collaborative approach.

An upgrade of the national strategy, it injects strong impetus into accelerating the development of China's primary source of original innovation and forging a strategic pillar for building a world-leading sci-tech power, Wan said.

(Cover via VCG)