Published by ChinaMNC · Dayu
China’s New Push to Integrate Tech and Industry: What Foreign Founders Need to Know
A practical guide for foreign entrepreneurs on China’s latest policy to deepen the integration of technological and industrial innovation, highlighting opportunities in emerging sectors, enterprise support measures, and compliance considerations.
China’s New Push to Integrate Tech and Industry: What Foreign Founders Need to Know
China’s central authorities have issued a new policy opinion aimed at deeply integrating technological innovation with industrial innovation. For foreign founders registering or operating a company in China, this signals both opportunities and regulatory shifts. Below is a practical summary of the key measures, focusing on what matters for business planning and compliance.
Overall Direction and Principles
The policy sets a goal of developing new quality productive forces and building a modern industrial system. It emphasizes an innovation system led by enterprises and coordinated among various actors—industry, academia, and research. The approach seeks to connect the entire chain, cover all fields, integrate all elements, and provide comprehensive support. Key principles include:
- Accurately grasping new trends in technological and industrial revolutions, and strengthening systematic planning.
- Balancing technology supply with demand pull, deploying innovation chains around industrial chains and vice versa.
- Reinforcing the principal role of enterprises in innovation and improving market mechanisms that incentivize innovation.
- Using reform to unleash innovation vitality and removing ideological and institutional barriers.
Key Measures Relevant to Foreign-Founded Companies
1. Enterprise-Led Innovation and Project Organization
National science and technology projects will increasingly be oriented toward industrial application. Corporate demands will be regularly collected, and experts from enterprises and venture capital institutions will have a greater role in guideline drafting, project review, and acceptance. Enterprises can lead projects, with mechanisms such as “open competition” and “owner responsibility” systems, milestone management, and phased funding. Acceptance will assess both technology application and market performance.
2. Accelerating Commercialization of Research Results
For national science and technology projects with clear industrial application goals, enterprises will generally lead implementation and commercialization. Universities and research institutes are encouraged to set up technology transfer offices, strengthen services in intellectual property, incubation, and tech finance, and use methods like licensing, transfer, and equity investment. Reforms will grant researchers more rights over job-related科技成果 and allow deferred payment for licensing to small and medium-sized enterprises. A unified national technology market and professional technology transfer institutions will be developed.
3. Scenario-Driven Innovation
A demonstration action for new technologies, products, and scenarios will be implemented, with greater efforts to cultivate and open application scenarios. Local governments are supported to open scenarios in government services, smart cities, and rural construction, and to improve the release of supply and demand information. This creates opportunities for foreign companies with innovative solutions to pilot projects in these areas.
4. Breakthroughs in Key Core Technologies
Decisive breakthroughs are targeted in integrated circuits, industrial mother machines, high-end instruments, advanced materials, and biomanufacturing. Industrial base reconstruction and major technical equipment projects will focus on weak links, including basic components, key basic software, key basic materials, advanced basic processes, and industrial technology foundations. Foreign firms in these sectors may find opportunities for collaboration or supply chain participation.
5. Cultivating Emerging and Future Industries
The policy promotes original and disruptive innovation to nurture emerging and future industries. It supports the development of new energy, new materials, and aerospace, and the construction of distinctive strategic emerging industry clusters. It also encourages the healthy and orderly development of the low-altitude economy. In frontier fields such as quantum technology, biomanufacturing, hydrogen and nuclear fusion, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and 6G, the policy explores diverse technical routes, typical application scenarios, and viable business models to accelerate industrialization and commercialization. Foreign founders with expertise in these areas should monitor regulatory developments and market access conditions.
6. Upgrading Traditional Industries
Major technological transformation and large-scale equipment renewal projects in manufacturing will be deepened. Industrial internet innovation, digital-real economy integration, and intelligent, green, and integrated manufacturing are priorities. Agricultural science and technology, including seed industry and agricultural machinery, will be strengthened. The “AI+” action will be fully implemented to empower all industries with artificial intelligence.
7. Enhancing Enterprise Innovation Capacity
Enterprises will have more regular participation in national science and technology and industrial development strategies, plans, and policies. The National Natural Science Foundation will pilot opening to private enterprises, and joint funds for enterprise innovation will expand. State-owned enterprises are encouraged to establish R&D reserve funds with independent accounting, exempt from value-preservation assessments, and with fault tolerance. Small and medium-sized tech enterprises are encouraged to increase R&D investment, with higher additional tax deductions for R&D expenses. Enterprises can lead the construction of science and technology innovation platforms. National major science and technology infrastructure, large research instruments, and national science data centers will be more open to enterprises. Talent programs will support enterprises, and enterprise postdoctoral stations will be strengthened.
8. Cultivating and Strengthening Tech Enterprises
The policy optimizes the cultivation of leading tech enterprises, supports high-tech enterprises, and improves mechanisms for fostering tech-based SMEs, “little giant” enterprises specializing in niche sectors, and manufacturing single champion enterprises. It accelerates the cultivation of tech startups and improves incubation and financing services. It also promotes collaborative innovation among large, medium, and small enterprises and along supply chains, encouraging large enterprises to open R&D platforms, application scenarios, and supply chains to SMEs and to pioneer the use of SME innovative products.
9. Synergy Among Innovation Actors
Leading tech enterprises are supported to play the role of chain leader in innovation and industry chains, and to lead the formation of innovation consortia. National laboratories, research institutes, and high-level research universities will strengthen cooperation with leading tech enterprises, distilling scientific questions from industrial needs. Enterprises are encouraged to participate in university and research institute activities and talent training, and to jointly build R&D institutions and set up research projects.
10. Virtuous Cycle of Technology, Industry, and Finance
A tech finance system adapted to the full life cycle of tech enterprises will be built. The national venture capital guidance fund will play a role. Government-funded and state-owned venture capital funds will strengthen early-stage, small-scale, long-term, and hard-tech investments, with long-cycle assessment, differentiated regulation, and exit mechanisms. The “innovation points system” will be promoted to quantitatively assess SME innovation capacity. A high-quality “tech board” in the bond market will be built. A tech insurance policy system will be established.
11. Talent Cultivation and Use
Education will be coordinated around technological innovation, industrial development, and national strategic needs. Discipline adjustment mechanisms involving science and technology and industry departments will be improved. University-enterprise cooperation, work-study alternation, and “dual mentor” systems will be promoted. Policies for researchers to take secondments, part-time jobs, and leave to start businesses will be improved, and models like science and technology commissioners will be promoted. Universities and research institutes are supported to hire enterprise innovators as industry mentors and professors. Young sci-tech talents are supported in innovation and entrepreneurship, and tech entrepreneurs will be vigorously cultivated.
12. Building Integrated Innovation Platforms
National emerging industry innovation centers, national industrial technology engineering centers, national technology innovation centers, and national manufacturing innovation centers will be coordinated. Concept validation centers and pilot testing platforms will be built to serve industrialization. Transformed research institutes are supported to build industrial technology research institutes and other common technology platforms. Local governments are supported to develop new R&D institutions in a regulated manner.
13. Market Environment and Regulatory Reform
Institutional barriers to innovative products entering the market will be removed. Pilot programs for relaxed market access in new business forms and fields will be carried out, exploring a commitment-based entry system. Supervision of new technology applications will be strengthened, and “sandbox regulation” will be explored. Laws and regulations in frontier fields such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology will be improved, and science and technology ethics rules will be perfected.
14. Intellectual Property and Standards
Protection of trade secrets and intellectual property in new business forms and fields will be strengthened. Benefit-sharing and risk-sharing mechanisms will be improved in industry-academia-research cooperation and commercialization. The patent open licensing system will be fully implemented. Patent layout for national major science and technology projects will be strengthened. Standard layout for such projects will be strengthened, with standard research tasks and assessment goals. National and international standards in frontier fields will be developed, and pre-standard research will be conducted. Enterprise and group standards will be improved.
15. Incentives and Evaluation
The policy system for innovation incentives will be improved, and tax incentives for science and technology innovation will be implemented. Fault tolerance and exemption mechanisms for commercialization and venture capital will be improved, and a negative list will be explored. The classified assessment system for state-owned enterprises will be improved, increasing the proportion of joint R&D expenses with universities and research institutes treated as profit. Industry-academia-research cooperation and commercialization results will be important in evaluating high-level research universities, research institutes, and researchers.
16. Local Pilot Programs
Local governments are supported to carry out pilot programs for deep integration. Macro guidance for local science and technology and industrial layouts will be strengthened, guiding localities to build on their endowments. Central-local coordination will be enhanced, with mechanisms for shared science and technology investment and joint implementation of major tasks. The regional innovation system will be improved, and cross-regional collaborative innovation will be strengthened. Various science and technology innovation and industrial innovation functional zones will be developed, and national high-tech zones and national independent innovation demonstration zones will be encouraged to pilot policies. International science and technology innovation centers, regional centers, and qualified localities will carry out reform pilots for deep integration, implement actions to stimulate industrial innovation vitality, build vibrant innovative cities, and create sources of original innovation.
Practical Takeaways for Foreign Founders
- Opportunities in emerging sectors: The policy prioritizes fields like new energy, advanced materials, aerospace, low-altitude economy, quantum tech, biomanufacturing, hydrogen, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, and 6G. Foreign founders with expertise here should monitor market access and regulatory developments.
- Enterprise-led innovation: There is a stronger push for enterprises to lead national projects and commercialization. Foreign-invested enterprises may find more avenues to participate in government-supported R&D, though eligibility details require confirmation.
- Support for SMEs: Measures to enhance SME innovation capacity, including tax incentives and access to national facilities, could benefit foreign-founded SMEs.
- Regulatory experimentation: Sandbox regulation and relaxed market access pilots may offer testing grounds for new technologies, but compliance with evolving rules in AI, biotech, and other frontier areas remains essential.
- Local variations: Pilot programs in specific regions and zones may create differentiated policies. Foreign founders should check local implementation rules.
This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.