Members, partners urged to flex tech muscles

BRICS countries should work together to seize the opportunities delivered by new rounds of industrialization featuring the latest technologies such as artificial intelligence, in order to improve the resilience of their economies, according to an official of a BRICS institution.

Huang Feng, executive deputy director of the Office of the Xiamen Leading Group for the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution Innovation Center, also known as BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center or BPIC, said that BRICS should respond to global economic uncertainty by vigorously promoting collaboration on technological innovation and its commercialization.

Emerging and strategic sectors such as telecommunications, digital services and renewable energy are important areas in which BRICS countries can work together, Huang said. They could cooperate to develop projects on intelligent manufacturing, the industrial internet, industrial design and green industries, he said.

The BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution is an initiative that President Xi Jinping proposed at the 10th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, in July 2018 to speed up efforts to introduce new impetus for the emerging economies and upgrade their economic structures.

Two years later, at the 12th BRICS Summit held via videoconference in November 2020, Xi said China would establish the BPIC in Xiamen, Fujian province, to facilitate policy coordination, personnel training and project development.

The institution has had several important milestones in the more than three years since it opened.

At the 15th BRICS Summit, held in Johannesburg in August 2023, Xi said that China would set up the China-BRICS Science and Innovation Incubation Park for the New Era to support the implementation of innovation results.

The park, which was launched in December last year in Xiamen, has attracted eight projects so far. It will "incubate a group of deep-tech companies that can be replicated in other BRICS countries", Huang said.

The BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center has also offered in-person and online training courses to more than 3 million people in 114 countries, covering subjects such as the industrial internet, how to enter the Chinese market, and technologies and governance of the new industrial revolution, he said.

"Through these measures, the BPIC has created a good environment, nurtured talent and provided resources for the BRICS countries' drive for industrial innovation," Huang added.

By advancing collaboration on digitalization and industrialization and conducting international exchanges, the institution serves to help turn the vision of the second "golden decade "of BRICS into reality, he said.

Huang also said that BRICS countries have seen their mechanisms for cooperation on technological innovation gradually mature. "They have been steadily developing platforms for technological innovation cooperation and have established robust technological financial support."

Frequent exchanges in youth technological innovation have also been fostered, he said, adding that "the new industrial revolution has provided the BRICS countries with opportunities for industrial upgrading".

However, BRICS countries face challenges, including the overall low level of innovation, cooperation models and supporting structures that are rudimentary, and persistent obstacles in the broader environment for technological innovation, Huang said.

He said that he expects leaders at the BRICS Summit in Kazan from Tuesday to Thursday to discuss coordination of industrial policies.

The summit is the first since BRICS was expanded in January. The expansion presents more opportunities for the organization, because the new member states are developing rapidly and thus enjoy strong demand for foreign investment, Huang said.

The BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center will step up efforts to make the most of what all BRICS members have in common, and of how they complement one another to boost economic and industrial cooperation for the expanded BRICS, he added.