In a move that follows national-level directives and priorities, the General office of the Beijing municipal government issued a notice on the “Implementation Plan of Beijing Municipality for Promoting the Innovative Development of Future Industries.” The document specifies areas of focus under the broad themed industries.
These are information (including 6G, AI and quantum information), manufacturing, health, energy, materials, and space. Nearly half of the future industries targeted by the Plan will come from the information and health fields.
Facing the future needs of information communication and advanced computing, the city will focus on the development of general artificial intelligence, sixth-generation mobile communications (6G), metaverse, quantum information, optoelectronics and other sub-industries in the Haidan, Chaoyang, Shijingshan, and Tongzhou Economic Development Zones and other regions.
The city plans to carry out research on key core technologies such as 6G network architecture, build a network and application integration test platform, and prospectively explore and layout typical application scenarios.
Space Industry
The commercial space plan calls for the acceleration of the development and production of medium and large commercial rockets, 3D printed rockets, high-thrust, reusable full-flow staged combustion cycle rocket engines, and recoverable commercial payload spacecraft.
It targets breakthroughs in key technologies including the vertical recovery of rockets, suborbital crewed flight, and cleaning up space debris. There will also be a focus on promoting projects including rocket engines and related key components, the construction of generalized and standardized testing platforms.
Satellites and Communications
The satellite-related section of the Plan intends to boost support for communication satellites, flat-panel satellites, software-defined satellites, and standardized satellite platforms.
Other areas of focus are laser communications, high-precision radar and optical imaging and low-cost phased array antennas. Noted objectives include promoting the construction of high-resolution, rapid revisit, full-coverage optical and radar remote sensing constellations, low-orbit Internet of Things satellites and low-orbit navigation enhancement constellations.
The efforts appear to line up with China’s previously announced national plan for a space-ground integrated information network, or SGIIN. This seeks to create an integrated system which combines communications, remote sensing, navigation, weather, and other satellite capabilities.
Beijing is home to a number of huge, established state-owned and emerging commercial companies. Rocket companies are centered in the south of the city, with satellite-related enterprises gravitating to its north. Beijing in 2021 laid out measures for the development of a satellite internet industry layout, translated loosely as “south rockets, north satellites.”
Metaverse
Regarding the Metaverse industry, Beijing wants to focus on breakthroughs in cutting-edge underlying technologies such as high-performance computing power chips and virtual reality operating systems, as well as the promotion of the innovative application of key metaverse technologies in smart cities, film and television entertainment, digital creativity, and other fields.
The Plan refers to the Metaverse as a new generation of information technology integration and innovation that would drive the growth of the internet toward Web3. The innovation plan focuses on promoting the development of Metaverse-related industries and helping Beijing build a benchmark city for the digital economy.
According to the plan, various districts will build technological infrastructure at a city level and promote its use in various fields, including education and tourism. The development program would see the Integration of technical means such as 3D visualization and GIS (Geographic Information System) to build a visual urban space digital platform and appropriately advance the layout of digital native intelligent infrastructure.
The Metaverse development action plan has also instructed districts and municipalities to offer financial and human resource support to build a virtual reality. The Beijing municipal government also demanded tracking nonfungible token (NFT) technology trends and exploring regulatory sandbox programs to support innovation.
While China is known for its anti-crypto stance, the government has shown interest in the Metaverse concept since early 2021. Before Beijing, Shanghai also included the Metaverse in the five-year development plan.
The rising interest of the Chinese government towards leading Web3 technologies could push to wider adoption in the country, similar to its central bank digital currency (CBDC), which is used by millions in the pilot phase.
Health and Medical Industries
Facing future health and medical needs, the city will focus on the development of gene technology, cell therapy and regenerative medicine, brain science and brain-computer interface, synthetic biology, and other sub-industries in the Haidan, Chaoyang, Shijingshan, and Tongzhou Economic Development Zones and other regions.
In terms of gene technologies of public interest, the Plan supports advanced gene diagnosis and treatment technologies, as well as clinical trials of drugs and application promotion in the fields of disease risk screening, prevention and targeted therapy.
Beijing’s policy notice follows directions from a national perspective. China’s central government announced plans to identify and incubate industries of the future in March 2021 with the draft outline of its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and long-range objectives through the year 2035.
The Beijing municipal government’s new policy announcement is a manifestation of those overarching goals being implemented. Provincial and municipal governments enact policies and initiatives set by the central plan, while tailoring these to local conditions and priorities.
They are tasked with adapting and implementing the national plan to suit local conditions, while adhering to the overall goals set by the central government.
The notice is general. It outlines areas of focus, but measures, such as those that may promote research and development or provide incentives or other policy support, have not yet been announced.
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