Zhongguancun Shines Brightly

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 25 (3月25日), the 《Xinhua Every Day Telegraph》 published a report titled 《Zhongguancun Starlight Shines at the Right Moment》.

In the scientific spring, Zhongguancun also did not expect that, decades ago, that small step would trigger such astonishing changes through ages of transformation.

Whether it was the “Beijing Advanced Technology Service Department” made up of a group of technology professionals, or an electronics street; whether it was the first national high-tech industrial development zone, or Hailong and Dinghao “hand-built computers”; whether it was the first national independent innovation demonstration zone, or the first city of artificial intelligence… these decisive moments that surpassed the times all happened here.

A new spring arrives again; along the Wanquan River, fresh greenery first blooms, welcoming the new season for all things.

On March 25, the annual Zhongguancun Forum conference convened as scheduled. Scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered for a springtime appointment with innovation: new ideas suddenly spark into brilliance, new viewpoints collide with one another, and the world’s attention turns again to the forefront of China’s technological innovation.

At the intersection of Beijing Haidian Huangzhuang Road, passersby passing by often notice a double-helix sculpture called 《Life》. It is paying tribute to innovation; the hot land beneath your feet—Zhongguancun—is not only a geographic landmark, but also a flame of the times that will not go out.

Zhongguancun is where generations of innovators set out. In the 1980s, scientific researchers boldly broke the ice, went into the sea to start businesses, and the country’s first private science and technology company was born as a result. Since then, Lenovo, Sohu, Baidu, Sina, BOE, Xiaomi, ByteDance, Zhipu AI, Moore Threads… one innovation story after another has unfolded here. Over more than 40 years, old neighborhoods have been demolished and rebuilt, and upgrades have been iterated; what has not changed is that there is always a group of people here, unflinchingly devoting themselves to what they love.

On March 24, viewers visited the permanent exhibition at the Zhongguancun Exhibition Center. From March 25 to 29, the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum annual conference, with the annual theme “Deep Integration of Science and Technology Innovation and Industrial Innovation,” will be held in Beijing. Photo by Zhang Chenlin, Xinhua News Agency.

Zhongguancun is a model of independent innovation in China. At the beginning of the reform and opening up, Wang Xuan’s team from Peking University developed independently the world-leading Chinese character information processing and laser typesetting system, ushering in a new era for Chinese-character printing. In the new era, faced with foreign technological blockade and suppression, China’s domestic GPU chips have made China’s computing power no longer be “bottlenecked.” At the start of the new year, China’s three large models consecutively topped OpenRouter’s global rankings; the number of Token calls is world-leading.

Zhongguancun is the vanguard of reform of the science and technology system. Explorations such as “use first and pay later for science and technology achievements,” and the separate management of office-related science and technology achievements as assets have all come from here to the whole country. The “watering” of policy innovation, institutional innovation, and innovation in government services allows researchers who are willing to sit on cold stools to use innovation as their fulcrum, hoisting the banner of transforming high-tech achievements and incubating high-precision and high-end industries—moving achievements continuously from the “bookshelf” to the “shelf,” so that more and more “seed of innovation” grows into towering trees.

Change is the most eye-catching word here.

In a group photo from the National Science Conference in 1978, Chen Chunxian, an academician of the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences standing beside Deng Jiaxian, was full of a smile. Not long after, he visited the United States. Across the ocean, Silicon Valley and the mode tightly connecting universities, enterprises, and factories along Highway 128 left him unable to remain calm for a long time. After returning to China, Chen Chunxian proposed carrying out a “technology diffusion” experiment in Zhongguancun, and building “China’s Silicon Valley.”

Chen Chunxian, who studied nuclear fusion research, sparked an “ignition” of innovation and entrepreneurship. From then on, Zhongguancun’s starry lights kept shining along the way. Here, the first Chinese operating system was born, the first Chinese input method, and the first Chinese character database; here, the country’s first national-level talent special zone, the first intellectual property court, and the first entrepreneurs’ bank were established…

Today, Zhongguancun’s total enterprise revenue reaches 10 trillion yuan. With its reform resolve to “be the first in the world,” it has ignited the engine driving innovation-led development.

Drawing a circle with the intersection of Beijing’s North Fourth Ring Road and Zhongguancun East Road as the center and 2 kilometers as the radius is what overseas media call the “world’s first artificial intelligence district.” Here, not only are there the most artificial intelligence companies in China, AI unicorns, and large AI models, but also China’s top AI scholars and R&D institutions. It is also the birthplace of China’s first trillion-parameter large model, the first AI agent, the first AI unicorn, the first intelligent robotics laboratory, the first general intelligent human in the world, and the first light-training chip in the world…

Zhongguancun’s technology has gone out of Beijing, sowed across Tianjin and Hebei, and spread overseas. Since the beginning of the year, “village-produced” large models have frequently appeared on the front lines of industries: in a factory in Yibin, Sichuan, the large-model R&D platform has become an “AI scientist,” compressing the electrolyte development cycle from 12 months to 3 months; at 3 a.m., the “dark lab” is empty of people, with only mechanical arms working—high-toxicity and high-risk experiments can be completed autonomously by AI, nonstop 24 hours a day.

And this is only one star among many in Zhongguancun. From one street to one park, to 17 parks covering 488 square kilometers—from the wild wasteland around Beijing in the past to today’s national business card; from “China’s Silicon Valley” to the “World’s Zhongguancun,” Zhongguancun has become a banner of China’s innovative development.

Today’s Zhongguancun is witnessing the meeting of the world and China. The Zhongguancun Forum arrives as scheduled; global wisdom converges here; frontier technologies are showcased in concentrated form; international projects compete to hold roadshows. A robot band, an AI translation officer, unmanned labs, smart factories… a vivid future is right in front of us.

Today’s Zhongguancun stands at the intersection of history and the future. Looking back, it has created an open expanse with the momentum of daring to try and to break through, turning “impossible” into “possible”; looking at the present, it is undertaking a long march of dreaming, supported by original hard technology, turning more “impossible” into “is happening.”

The tracks are changing, and so is the scenery, but the heart that pursues new and seeks change remains as hot as it was yesterday.

Here, it is never only an innovation hub; it is also fertile ground where dreams are laid to rest. Step by step, ordinary people move forward; innovation-makers do not retreat. Year after year, life continues without end.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Large-scale information and precise interpretation—only on the Sina Finance APP