Qingdao accelerates building a modern marine industrial system led by sci-tech innovation. CHINA DAILY

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), Qingdao fully leveraged its marine resources to promote the integration of science and technology with industry, achieving a series of remarkable outcomes.

In building innovation platforms, Qingdao is accelerating the construction of three major national deep-sea facilities: the national deep-sea big data center, the national deep-sea gene bank and the national deep-sea sample library.

In addition, in the fields of education and scientific research, institutes such as the China Institute of Ocean Engineering (Qingdao) and the Qingdao Institute of Blue Seed Industry have been established and are operating in the city.

To promote the commercialization of scientific and research findings, Qingdao has introduced relevant policies to better serve marine-related platforms and institutions. Notable achievements include innovative drugs from the Marine Biomedical Research Institute of Qingdao, new varieties of aquatic products from the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, and a large marine data buoy developed by the Institute of Oceanographic Instrumentation, Shandong Academy of Sciences.

Moreover, Qingdao has cultivated 795 high-tech enterprises in marine-related fields and established a group of leading innovative enterprises.

It has also created 31 provincial innovation centers, with new research and development investments totaling 5.69 billion yuan ($805 million) and 215 new technologies.

In the area of new quality productive forces, the world's first 150,000-metric-ton smart aquaculture work vessel and China's first self-navigating 300 TEU container ship have been completed and put into operation.

Qingdao has also established China's first marine industrial cluster for artificial intelligence and large language models, with 34 such models currently under development or released.

Qingdao has hosted three marine industry-university-research collaborative innovation conferences this year, launched 12 exemplary cases, and 120 technology supply and demand lists, facilitating more than 60 industry-research cooperation intentions.

In terms of talent development, Qingdao has implemented an action plan to attract marine experts, with the city's total marine talent exceeding 400,000.Among national and provincial high-level talent, marine-related professionals account for over 33 percent.

The city has also introduced relevant policies to continuously optimize the environment for talent development. Relevant enterprises and skilled personnel have received targeted support, achieving breakthroughs in multiple core technologies.