Provincial Two Sessions' Voices on New Materials

Recently, the local two sessions across the country have successively concluded. The new materials industry, due to its foundational, strategic, and pioneering status, has become a focal point for representatives and committee members. From the construction of industrial bases to the transformation of research outcomes, from differentiated layouts to high-end upgrades, a wave of "material" transformation is sweeping across various regions.

New material industry becomes a key direction for transformation

Across local government work reports, new materials have emerged as a key focus for traditional industrial provinces in their efforts to transform and upgrade.

Liaoning Province has been fostering and expanding emerging industries, with the added value of high-tech manufacturing growing at an average annual rate of 10.3%. Four industrial clusters—aviation, robotics and intelligent manufacturing, industrial machine tools, and green petrochemicals—have been designated as national advanced manufacturing clusters. According to Liaoning Governor Wang Xinwei, the added value of electronic specialty materials increased by 17.5%; major projects such as Hengli Heavy Industry Phase II and Dingjide High-End New Materials have been completed and put into operation; key projects including Sinopec-Aramco Petrochemical and the China Institute of Atomic Energy’s Huludao Base are accelerating construction; and the Shenyang Chemical New Materials and Panjin Fine Chemical platforms have been recognized as among the first national-level manufacturing pilot testing platforms.

When delivering the government work report, Shandong Governor Zhou NaiXiang pointed out that Shandong has taken solid steps in industrial optimization and upgrading. High-end tire barrier materials have broken the foreign technology monopoly; the national green chemical and new materials manufacturing pilot platform has been approved; major projects such as Qilu Petrochemical's local oil refining, Jiu De Chemical's new materials, and others are being implemented in an orderly manner. Projects like the Shandong Times New Energy Battery Base have been completed and put into production, and the first phase of Yulong Petrochemical has achieved stable production. The output of high-tech products has significantly increased, with integrated circuit wafers growing by 19.2% and lithium batteries growing by 103.1%.

As a significant old industrial base in the country, Gansu Province is fully advancing the strengthening of its industrial and economic sectors, adhering to the principle of strengthening leading enterprises, supplementing the industrial chain, and aggregating industrial clusters. It promotes the quality and upgrading of 15 key industrial chains through the chain leader system, implementing 1,424 "three modernizations" renovation projects. The nickel, copper, and cobalt new material industry cluster has entered the national small and medium-sized enterprise characteristic industrial cluster, with the output value of the new material industry increasing by 83.5%.

Lay out a differentiated competition track to seize the opportunity.

In the future landscape of the new materials industry, various regions have planned differentiated breakthrough paths based on their own resource endowments and industrial foundations.

"Rich resources and energy, as well as solid scientific and technological innovation capabilities, have accumulated a solid foundation for the development of new materials industry in Shaanxi, and have also provided conditions for the next round of breakthrough development." According to Shen Yongping, a member of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Shaanxi should make full use of its resource advantages, combined with the industrial foundations of aerospace, information technology, new energy, and advanced manufacturing in Shaanxi, to develop new material industries such as magnesium alloys and graphene nanomaterials; relying on existing industrial areas such as Yushen Industrial Zone, the New Materials Industrial Innovation Agglomeration Area of Qinchuangyuan, and the New Materials Park of Xi'an Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, to foster a number of specialized new materials industrial parks, and implement a differentiated and specialized cluster development strategy.

Huang Baorong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a standing committee member of the Gansu Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, stated that it is necessary to promote the clustering of industries, turning "underground treasures" into a "source of living water" for high-quality development. Expand the coal chemical industry chain, develop coal-based new materials, build a low-carbon coal chemical industry chain that integrates green electricity, coal and chemical integration, and petroleum and chemical parallel development, and create a national-level coal chemical industry demonstration base; strengthen the petrochemical industry chain, focusing on the development of ethylene, propylene, aromatics, and fine chemicals, accelerate the construction of the Lanbai million-ton refining base and the hundred-thousand-ton chemical new materials base, support the construction of a pipeline for transporting aromatic liquid products from Lanzhou Petrochemical Company to Lanzhou New Area, and strengthen the high-performance silicon fluoride new materials cluster in Yumen, creating the "Western Fluorine Valley."

Shanxi Provincial People's Congress representative, Secretary and Chairman of Huayang Group, Wang Yongge, proposed that we should continue to extend coal and go beyond coal, and make the new energy and new materials industry more refined and optimized. Focusing on the sodium-ion battery industry chain and high-performance carbon fiber, we should focus on technological iteration and industrial supporting upgrades, and layout subsequent projects such as sodium-ion cell, Pack battery, and energy storage integration. We should explore the layout of sodium-ion solid-state batteries and specialized carbon fiber industries. At the same time, we should include sodium-ion emergency power supplies as the third backup power source in the key work task list, and increase the promotion and application efforts, creating favorable conditions for the "Huayang-made" sodium-ion emergency power supplies to leave Shanxi and reach the whole country. We should also introduce supporting policies for the high-performance carbon fiber industry and fully support carbon fiber enterprises in Shanxi to cooperate with other enterprises.

Unblock the "last mile" of technology transformation

How can scientific research achievements break out of ivory towers and be transformed into industrial competitive advantages? During this year’s local “Two Sessions,” deputies and members proposed various suggestions and recommendations.

Among these, the construction of pilot testing bases has become a common concern for many representatives. "Pilot testing bases are the key bridge connecting laboratories and industrialization, directly determining the development speed of emerging industries," said Fang Yitian, a representative of the Shanxi Provincial People's Congress and the director of the Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanxi. He suggested formulating a special policy, "Special Policy for the Construction and Operation of Energy Chemicals and Materials Pilot Testing Bases in Shanxi Province," hoping that under the support of this special policy, a "one area, one base" layout could be promoted in Shanxi's industrial clusters, planning and constructing energy chemicals and materials pilot testing bases, incorporating them into the overall layout of provincial-level major innovation platforms, and building 3-5 national-level energy chemicals and materials pilot testing highlands during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

Chen Tengfei, a member of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, suggests continuous efforts should be made to address the shortcomings in the intermediate testing phase, smooth the path for the transformation of research outcomes, and build an integrated ecosystem for industry-academia-research collaboration. These efforts aim to accelerate the transformation of technological achievements in material science in Hunan Province, promoting the high-end, intelligent, and green transformation and high-quality development of manufacturing and other strategic emerging industries. He stated that a number of provincial "new material intermediate testing and maturation bases" and "engineering verification platforms" could be laid out, relying on universities, leading enterprises, or industrial parks. It is suggested that the government provide special construction and operation funding support, encouraging them to open up to the public, to provide key services such as process scaling, stability testing, application scenario simulation, and standard formulation for laboratory achievements from universities and research institutes, significantly reducing the risks and costs for enterprises to take on early-stage technologies. Meanwhile, exploring financial tools like "intermediate testing insurance" and collaborating with insurance institutions to develop exclusive insurance products for intermediate testing, to disperse the risks in the early stage of industrialization.

In recent years, the scale of the new materials industry in Jilin Province has continued to expand. The accelerated construction of the Changchun modern metropolitan area has brought opportunities for the development of the industry. Based on this, Jilin Provincial CPPCC member Fang Changli suggested strengthening planning guidance and building a complete industrial chain. Focusing on advantageous fields such as carbon fiber, optoelectronic materials, biomedical materials, and new graphite materials, it is necessary to clarify the core upstream and downstream links of the industrial chain, guiding private enterprises to precisely connect with the needs of the industrial chain and extend towards high-value-added segments. Strengthening basic research and key technology breakthroughs, supporting universities and institutes to conduct cutting-edge research in areas such as new polymer materials, nanocomposites, and high-performance functional materials.

“The ‘data-driven new materials’ research paradigm will become a critical breakthrough for advancing the interdisciplinary integration of fundamental science and artificial intelligence, and for empowering the upgrading of Hunan Province’s new materials and high-end manufacturing industries.” According to Zhang Yan, a member of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and Deputy Director of the Powder Metallurgy Research Institute at Central South University, Hunan currently possesses distinct advantages in developing data-driven new materials—including a robust industrial foundation, abundant data resources, and a complete industrial chain. At the same time, challenges remain, such as an imperfect data system, lagging data governance technologies, and weak integrated application capabilities. She proposes addressing these challenges through four key approaches: empowering innovation mechanisms, consolidating the data foundation, cultivating data talent, and promoting scenario-based applications—thereby leveraging data to drive the development of Hunan’s trillion-yuan new materials industrial cluster.