Chengdu, Chongqing strive to become regional sci-tech innovation hub

Since last year, Chongqing municipality and Sichuan province, both located in West China, have seized the strategic opportunity of constructing the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle and have deepened cooperation in becoming one of China's regional sci-tech innovation hubs.

One of the key laboratories jointly established by the two regions is the Digital Economy Intelligence and Security Key Laboratory. Specifically, this lab was jointly built by Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

The National Supercomputing Center in Chengdu, the only operational national supercomputing center in the western region of China, is providing around-the-clock computing power support for innovative enterprises and research institutes in the two regions.

"The China Automotive Engineering Research Institute in Chongqing has reduced the verification time for car exterior designs from the previous two to three months to just two to three days, thanks to the computing resources and technical support provided by the Chengdu Supercomputing Center," said Wang Jianbo, the general manager of the Chengdu Supercomputing Center.

According to statistics, 11 national large-scale scientific facilities and five national industry (technology) innovation centers are currently being constructed in the two regions. Research institutes in Sichuan and Chongqing have also jointly established the Sichuan-Chongqing Technology Transfer Alliance, the Research Institute Alliance, and the University Sci-tech Park Alliance, among other collaborative innovation institutions.

In the Western (Chengdu) Science City, there are currently more than 80 industrial innovation platforms, with 103 national-level innovation platforms already established and 65 university-industry collaborative innovation platforms built. In the Western (Chongqing) Science City, there are a total of 139 established national-level sci-tech innovation platforms and 132 collaborative innovation projects involving universities and research institutes.

Collaborative innovation in the Chengdu-Chongqing region is gaining momentum, with fundamental and applied research being conducted in fields such as high-end manufacturing, electronic information, new energy vehicles, biomedicine, aerospace, and the nuclear industry.