CMG releases top 10 domestic, international sci-tech news of 2025

Top 10 domestic sci-tech news of 2025

1.    China to build three world-class science and technology innovation centers. The Central Economic Work Conference set the major task of building international science and technology innovation centers in Beijing (the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region), Shanghai (the Yangtze River Delta), and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. 

2.    The State Council issued guidelines on implementing the "AI Plus" initiative. The guideline sets out actions in six key priority areas – including AI Plus science and technology, industrial development, and consumption upgrading – and calls for strengthening eight foundational support systems, including models, data and intelligent computing power, to promote the extensive and in-depth integration of AI with all areas of the economy and society.

3.    On May 29, China launched the Tianwen-2 probe aboard a Long March-3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province. The mission marked China's first asteroid exploration and sample-return effort, aiming to study "cosmic fossils" of the solar system and advance interplanetary science. 

4.    China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak achieved sustained operation of high-confinement plasma at over 100 million degrees Celsius for 1,066 seconds, setting a new benchmark and advancing progress toward controlled fusion. 

5.    Chinese AI model DeepSeek draws global attention. DeepSeek represents a major breakthrough in China's AI foundation model development and has helped broaden AI adoption worldwide through its low-cost, open-weight approach.

6.    The superconducting quantum computer prototype "Zuchongzhi 3.0" set a new record in quantum computational advantage within superconducting systems. It processes quantum random circuit sampling tasks at a speed quadrillion times faster than the world's most powerful supercomputer and 1 million times faster than Google's latest results published in Nature in October 2024.

7.    China's first electromagnetic catapult aircraft carrier, the Fujian, was commissioned. On November 5, China held a commissioning and flag-presenting ceremony for the aircraft carrier Fujian in south China's Hainan Province, marking the entry into service of China's first aircraft carrier equipped with electromagnetic catapults.

8.    Shenzhou-22 carried out an emergency mission featuring end-to-end uncrewed operations and rapid docking with the country's space station complex, demonstrating high autonomy and reliability in launch and control systems. 

9.    Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) officially entered operation. JUNO is the world's first operational ultra-large scientific facility dedicated to neutrino research with ultra-high precision, tackling one of the major questions in particle physics this decade: the ordering of neutrino masses. JUNO will also enable cutting-edge studies of neutrinos from the Sun, supernovae, the atmosphere and Earth.

10.  Robot competitions flourished as China's embodied intelligence sector accelerated. Multiple events in 2025, including the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon and the CMG World Robot Skills Competition, drew wide attention, reflecting China's progress in hardware, algorithms and data for humanoid robots.

Top 10 international sci-tech news of 2025

1. China leads rapid global growth in renewable energy. The renewables surpassed traditional energy sources in multiple areas in 2025, with China playing a key role in manufacturing and scaling clean-energy technologies.

2. Mammalian brain map details huge number of neurons and their activity. This wiring diagram maps the complex connections between different brain regions at single-neuron resolution, offering a precise blueprint for understanding how the brain works and for studying the circuit mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.

3. Physicists created a quantum bit out of antimatter for the first time. The researchers used magnetic fields to trap a single antiproton – the antimatter version of the protons inside of atoms – and measured how fast its spin changed direction for almost a full minute.

4. International research teams developed AI-powered "virtual cell" models, an emerging frontier at the intersection of artificial intelligence and biology. Designed to predict cellular responses to perturbations, these models provide a new computational experimental platform for drug screening, disease-mechanism research and personalized medicine, helping drive life-science research toward a more digital and predictive paradigm.

5. An international science program focused on fusion burning plasma research was launched in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province. Fusion scientists from more than 10 countries jointly signed and released the Hefei Fusion Declaration at the event, to promote open science and encourage researchers worldwide to join in fusion research efforts in China.

6. Stephen Hawking's 50-year-old theorem on how black holes merge together has been successfully tested thanks to huge advances in gravitational wave astronomy, which helped astronomers catch the waves caused by an unusually powerful collision as they passed Earth at the speed of light.

7. A universal photonic quantum computer, known as Aurora, was successively built – a world-first in the quantum computing industry.  

8. A tiny wireless chip implanted in the back of the eye and a pair of high-tech glasses have partially restored vision to people with an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration.

9. Scientists have detected ripples in space-time from the violent collision of two massive black holes that spiraled into one another far beyond the distant edge of the Milky Way.

10. At the World Federation of Engineering Organizations 2025 General Assembly and the Global Engineering Congress, the Shanghai Declaration was released to accelerate implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Paris Agreement, Pact for the Future and Global Digital Compact.