Nation's innovation strength, speed hailed

David Blair, vice-president and senior economist at the Center for China and Globalization, said the deeper integration of manufacturing and innovation will be key to future competitiveness.

Artificial intelligence and other new technologies have the potential to significantly boost productivity, but their broader impact will depend on how effectively they are applied to manufacturing, he added.

This is also putting greater emphasis on enabling technologies, such as photonic technologies, that can support the next stage of industrial upgrading.

Mi Lei, founding partner of Casstar, said photonic technologies will play an increasingly important role across the information industry, from data acquisition and transmission to storage and processing.

Photonic chips are expected to become core infrastructure in the AI era and to continue to drive a new wave of industrial upgrading, he said.

For multinational companies, this focus on moving innovation into production is already being reflected in deeper local operations.