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China is pledging to use ‘extraordinary measures’ to support the country's bid to become a global leader in artificial intelligence, quantum technology and other cutting-edge technological fields, according to its 15th five-year plan.
The plan (FYP) was passed by the top legislature in Beijing on Thursday and published on Friday. It will run from 2026 to 2030 and serves as China’s overarching blueprint.
Many researchers noted an air of confidence in the plan. “Five years ago, the sentiment of the Chinese science policymakers was still very much like, we don’t want to be too far behind the US, we are still doing the catching up,” says Meicen Sun, an information scientist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Now, there is this more palpable sentiment that there’s a real chance we can be a true leader,” she says.
The government has promised to boost its research and development (R&D) expenditure over the next five years. And the country’s science budget is also expected to increase to 426 billion yuan (US$62 billion) this year, a rise of 10% from 2025.
The Chinese government now considers science to be as important as other top-level national goals, such as boosting defence, economic growth and the country’s international influence, says Stefanie Kam, who researches Chinese politics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Technology strangleholds
The plan also doubles down on the government’s long-term goal of becoming more self-sufficient by overcoming technological bottlenecks that prevent China from making key technologies, such as advanced semiconductor chips.
It calls for breakthroughs along the ‘whole chain of development’ in six domains: integrated circuits, industrial machine tools (machines that make other machines), high-end instruments, basic software, advanced materials and biomanufacturing.
That essentially means that the country will step up its domestic capabilities in every aspect of those industries, says Steven Hai, a political economist focusing on technology innovation at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China.
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