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HEFEI, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Anhui, a major agricultural province in
eastern China, achieved a gross domestic product growth of 3.9 percent
in 2020, ranking the fourth-fastest among provincial-level economies in
China by industrial upgrade. The province is one of the epitomes of China's high-quality
development in recent years featuring flourishing emerging industries
and scientific innovation. The changing electricity consumption of different industries during
the past decades is an obvious indicator of its transformation. Data from the State Grid Hefei Power Supply Company showed that
emerging industries including computer, communications and other
electronic equipment manufacturing became the main electricity users in
Hefei, capital of Anhui, in 2020, with leading Chinese display producer
BOE Technology Group Co. Ltd. being the biggest user. Back in 2010, the top 10 list, however, was dominated by industries
including chemicals, and ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing. "The change in the list manifests the industrial upgrade from
energy-intensive heavy industry to high-tech industry," said Jiang Zheng
of the State Grid Hefei Power Supply Company. According to Niu Nutao, director of Anhui's department of economy and
information technology, there are currently over 300 integrated circuit
enterprises in Anhui and the output of microcomputers ranks fifth in
the country. Industrial upgrade is backed by scientific innovation and emerging industry clusters. It took six years for Huang Wang, chairman of Huami Corporation, to
develop this startup into a leading smart wearable device-maker with an
annual sales volume of 5.8 billion yuan (about 897 million U.S.
dollars). "We had technology but lacked funds at the initial stage, and thanks
to the loan offered by the government to encourage innovation, we got
out of the difficulty," said Huang. The province has rolled out a slew of measures to support scientific
innovation. It invested 17.97 billion yuan to develop science and
technology in the first half of 2019. Origin Quantum, a 3-year-old startup focusing on quantum computers
and related technologies, has recently released an operating system
called Origin Pilot. The system can improve the operating efficiency of
quantum computers several times in testing, said Guo Guangcan, an
academician from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Yunfei Road, where the company is located in Hefei, is dubbed
"quantum street" by locals as it is home to over 20 quantum technology
startups. "Only when we strengthen innovation and tackle key technologies, can
we break through the bottleneck and lead high-quality development," said
Luo Ping, director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Science and
Technology. In the western suburbs of Hefei, over 1,000 enterprises including the
artificial intelligence (AI) firm iFLYTEK Co. Ltd. have gathered in an
AI-focused industrial base called China Speech Valley, forming a
complete voice and AI industry chain. "The enterprises in the base can collaborate and enjoy common
services, greatly enhancing their competitiveness," said Qi Dongfeng,
president of China Speech Valley. From new energy automobiles to chips, robots and display screens,
dozens of industrial chains have been formed in Anhui in the recent
years. "The country's striving for high-quality development offers both
challenges and opportunities for us. We need to develop with the power
of science and industrial chain," said Zhu Shengli, director of the
Hefei Development and Reform Commission. Enditem
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