Huo Chunhui and He Di: Strengthening the Leading Role of Tech Giants in Tackling Key Core Technologies

As the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation accelerates its evolution, international competition in science and technology is becoming increasingly fierce, and the world’s major innovative powers are racing to seize the high ground of science and technology. The "Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee on Asserting the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development," deliberated and adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, explicitly identifies "greatly increasing the level of self-reliance and strength in science and technology" as one of the primary goals for China’s economic and social development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. It proposes strengthening original innovation and the tackling of "bottleneck" key core technologies ^[1], emphasizing the need to "coordinate the construction of national strategic scientific and technological forces, enhance systematic tackling capabilities," and "cultivate and strengthen leading science and technology enterprises, supporting the development of high-tech enterprises and science-and-technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)." As an important component of the national strategic scientific and technological forces, leading science and technology enterprises possess prominent advantages such as high levels of technical innovation, sufficient reserves of scientific and technological talent, and strong industrial leadership capabilities. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the leading role of such enterprises in tackling key core technologies, especially their leadership in four areas: innovation decision-making, Research and Development (R&D) investment, collaborative breakthroughs, and the transformation of achievements. This is not only an inevitable choice to respond to the current state of international competition in science and technology but also a strategic measure to accelerate the construction of a science and technology power, achieve high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology, and win the battle for key core technologies.

1. Strengthen the leading role of leading science and technology enterprises in innovation decision-making and improve demand-driven decision-making mechanisms.

Enterprises are at the forefront of industrial practice and market competition. Leading science and technology enterprises not only master the cutting-edge technologies of their industries but also possess keen insights into technological change trends and future market demands. Leading science and technology enterprises should be positioned as the "sources" of major technological demands, giving full play to their role as "problem-setters" ^[2]. We must improve the decision-making mechanism for tackling key core technologies driven by demand, thereby ensuring that the goals and directions of these breakthroughs can always focus on major strategic needs and anchor themselves to real technical bottlenecks, avoiding the "two layers of skin" ^[3] between technology supply and industrial demand. We should promote leading science and technology enterprises to become the proposers of directions for key core technology breakthroughs, strengthen the rapid response to the urgent technical needs of these enterprises, and encourage and guide them to take the lead in proposing key core technology breakthrough projects. We should promote leading science and technology enterprises to take the lead in undertaking major national strategic science and technology tasks, establish a normalized communication mechanism for participating in key core technology decision-making, and increase the discourse power of leading science and technology enterprises in activities such as the formulation of science and technology plans, the solidification of breakthrough tasks, and project consultation and demonstration. The proportion of key core technology breakthrough projects led by leading science and technology enterprises should be increased, as should the number of experts from these enterprises in expert databases. We should promote leading science and technology enterprises to work with the government and upstream/downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to jointly draw up lists of breakthrough tasks, reducing the risk of "market failure" caused by information asymmetry. At the same time, the government should provide support through various methods such as targeted commissioned projects, reinforcing the principal position of leading science and technology enterprises in innovation decision-making for key core technologies. We should leverage the role of technology insurance as a "shock absorber," providing risk compensation for identifying technical directions and selecting technical routes, thereby increasing the confidence of leading science and technology enterprises in participating in innovation decision-making.

2. Strengthen the leading role of leading science and technology enterprises in R&D investment and increase the intensity of technical R&D investment.

Compared with average enterprises, leading science and technology enterprises have a stronger will to conduct R&D and can bear higher R&D expenditures, playing an irreplaceable role in meeting challenges such as the high investment and long cycles brought about by tackling key core technologies. We should guide and support leading science and technology enterprises to focus on key areas and continuously increase the intensity of R&D investment. On one hand, we must establish and improve long-term mechanisms for continuous R&D investment by leading science and technology enterprises. We should promote the linking of R&D investment intensity with policy support, motivating leading science and technology enterprises to continuously direct resources toward R&D activities. We should enhance the supply of original innovation from the source by leading science and technology enterprises and increase the proportion of basic research within R&D investment. We should support leading science and technology enterprises in building high-level R&D platforms such as national key laboratories and national technical innovation centers. We should increase the openness of scientific instruments and equipment, major science and technology infrastructures, and basic patent information resources from universities and research institutes to leading science and technology enterprises. We should support leading science and technology enterprises in establishing overseas R&D institutions to utilize overseas talent, technology, and environmental advantages for R&D activities. On the other hand, we must comprehensively utilize policy tools such as finance, taxation, and banking to incentivize enterprises to continuously increase R&D investment. We should promote the shift of R&D investment by leading science and technology enterprises from "passive response" to "proactive planning," exploring the establishment of an R&D reserve fund system. We should strengthen financial subsidies for leading science and technology enterprises, providing direct financial support categorized by the level of the enterprise's R&D expenditure. We should further increase the ratio of the additional weighted deduction for R&D expenses for leading science and technology enterprises, exploring the inclusion of more types of R&D activities in the scope of this deduction to lower the R&D tax burden on enterprises. We should strengthen science and technology financial support and reinforce the application of new technological financial policy tools such as the enterprise innovation credit system. We should promote the joint construction of a multi-level science and technology financial service ecosystem by the government, technology-based enterprises, financial institutions, venture capital funds, and third-party intermediary service agencies. We should promote the establishment of seed funds and science and technology innovation funds by the government or state-owned capital investment funds in conjunction with social capital to increase investment in R&D for leading science and technology enterprises.

3. Strengthen the leading role of leading science and technology enterprises in cooperative breakthroughs and build industry-university-research innovation consortiums.

General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "leading science and technology enterprises must give play to their advantages in market demand, integrated innovation, and organizational platforms, opening up the channel from a strong science and technology base to strong enterprises, strong industries, and a strong economy." Leading science and technology enterprises possess both a sense of the big picture and a sense of mission in serving national strategies, as well as the coordination and mobilization advantages for promoting organized scientific research breakthroughs. Therefore, we should guide leading science and technology enterprises to take on heavy burdens and lead the charge, aiming at "stranglehold" ^[4] technical problems and the frontiers of science and technology. They should proactively undertake national science and technology breakthrough tasks and lead the formation of systematic, task-oriented innovation consortiums, conducting collaborative breakthroughs with universities, research institutes, and upstream/downstream enterprises in the industrial chain. We must leverage the dominant position of leading science and technology enterprises within innovation consortiums, enhancing their autonomy in technical route planning, member selection, project fund allocation, and resource scheduling. Moving around the target of tackling key core technologies, we should give full play to the industrial chain coordination and system integration functions of leading science and technology enterprises, increasing the enthusiasm of participating members and promoting resource sharing and complementary advantages. At the same time, by constructing market-oriented and institutionalized governance mechanisms for cooperative breakthroughs, we should focus on overcoming "organizational failures" such as "free-riding." We should strengthen regular communication among participants in joint breakthroughs and establish an organizational coordination mechanism led by leading science and technology enterprises; clarify the functional responsibilities of participating parties and establish task distribution and performance evaluation mechanisms; promote the corporatization and substantial operation of innovation consortiums to build a community of shared interests; strengthen intellectual property management and establish a distribution mechanism for the benefits of technological breakthrough achievements; and increase the tolerance for innovation failure, strengthen periodic risk monitoring, and establish risk assessment and risk-sharing mechanisms. We should strengthen cross-regional collaborative breakthrough cooperation, focusing on breaking through market and institutional barriers to promote the flow of innovation factors over a wider range. We should encourage leading science and technology enterprises to "go global" ^[5], actively integrating into the global innovation network and enhancing their discourse power and influence in the global innovation system. We should carry out high-level international technical cooperation and build open joint innovation entities, forming an open innovation ecosystem characterized by the deep integration of industry, university, and research led by leading science and technology enterprises.

4. Strengthen the leading role of leading science and technology enterprises in the transformation of achievements and open up the full-chain path for result transformation.

The key to promoting the transformation of key core technology breakthrough achievements lies in achieving the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation, and leading science and technology enterprises are precisely the vital carriers for the fusion of the innovation chain and the industrial chain. Leading science and technology enterprises possess keen insight into market demand and industrial trends, which can effectively promote the adaptation of technological achievements to industrial needs. At the same time, leading science and technology enterprises often dominate or participate in the setting of standards, enabling them to promote the diffusion and application of new technologies and achievements throughout the industrial chain. Therefore, we must guide leading science and technology enterprises to open up the full-chain path for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, actively laying out and building technical transformation platforms to enhance the efficiency of achievement transformation and industrialization capabilities. We should give play to the leading role of these enterprises to change the traditional orientation of evaluating scientific and technological achievements that "values theory over application," using "hard indicators" such as the import substitution rate, market share, and economic benefits of scientific and technological achievements as the criteria for project acceptance, promoting the better implementation and application of these achievements. We should give full play to the advantages of China’s ultra-large-scale market and rich application scenarios, utilizing the supporting role of government procurement to promote the application of new technologies, products, and scenarios. We should strengthen the coordination and connection of various innovation support policies, such as scenario cultivation and opening, and the "first unit (set)" ^[6] of technical equipment, the "first batch" of new materials, and the "first edition" of high-end software, opening up initial markets for independent innovation products formed through breakthroughs led by leading science and technology enterprises. At the same time, we should guide leading science and technology enterprises to increase the construction and opening of application scenarios, providing broad iterative space and testing grounds for new technologies and products, forming a scenario-driven model for the transformation of achievements. We should leverage the leading role of leading science and technology enterprises in gathering and cultivating talent, promoting the concentration of high-level innovative talent toward these enterprises. We should support leading science and technology enterprises in the targeted introduction of scientific and technological leaders and high-level innovation teams, setting up positions such as technical managers and technology transfer specialists to help boost the transformation of technical achievements into actual productive forces.