MIIT and Seven Other Departments Issue the "15th Five-Year Plan" for Enhancing Industrial Base Capabilities: Strengthen R&D Layout for General-Purpose and Industry Large Models

On October 22, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other departments issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for Enhancing Industrial Base Capabilities," which mentions promoting AI-enabled innovation in the industrial base. It calls for strengthening the R&D layout of general-purpose large models and industry-specific large models in the industrial base field, promoting the integration of industrial mechanisms with agent decision-making models, developing AI-native basic products, and cultivating new business forms such as model-as-a-service and agent-as-a-service. It also calls for accelerating the implementation and application of AI across all links, including product R&D, design simulation, pilot testing and verification, and production operations, improving the level of intelligence in process management, analysis and forecasting, and decision execution, and accelerating iterative innovation in the industrial base.

Strengthen the principal role of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation. Support enterprises in deeply participating in national science and technology research projects and the formulation of technology roadmaps in the industrial base field, and in taking the lead in implementing more research tasks. Strengthen enterprise-led collaborative innovation integrating industry, academia and research, support high-quality enterprises in taking the lead in establishing innovation consortia, strengthen basic research and underlying technology R&D, and carry out research on key basic products, pilot testing and verification, and demonstration applications. Support enterprises in the industrial base field in jointly carrying out the screening, evaluation and revitalization of existing patents with universities and research institutions. Encourage and guide universities and research institutes to license innovation outcomes to small, medium and micro enterprises for use on a pay-after-use basis.

Accelerate breakthroughs in key common basic products. Establish a survey system for industrial base competitiveness to ascertain the industrial baseline. Compile the "Catalogue of Innovative Development of the Industrial Base" on a rolling basis to provide guidance for all parties to focus on key areas and carry out research. Implement actions to achieve breakthroughs in key basic products, centering on common basic products that span industrial chains and fields, coordinate efforts to shore up weaknesses and strengthen strengths, encourage both research enterprises and application enterprises to take the lead, carry out concentrated research breakthroughs through mechanisms such as "open competition to select the best candidates" and "horse racing," strengthen general-purpose, serialized and standardized development, accelerate the formation of a batch of mature, reliable and widely applicable industrial base "off-the-shelf products," and build a batch of "strengths" in key basic products.

Strengthen the layout of frontier technology innovation in the industrial base. Aiming at frontier fields such as quantum technology, biomanufacturing, hydrogen energy and nuclear fusion energy, brain-computer interfaces, embodied intelligence, sixth-generation mobile communications (6G), and deep space, deep sea, deep earth and polar regions, and following the approach of "scenario-driven, foundations first," make forward-looking arrangements for a batch of key basic product innovation tasks and enhance the supply capacity of original and disruptive basic technologies and products. Encourage enterprises in the industrial base field to cooperate closely with national laboratories, national key laboratories, national research institutions and high-level research universities, actively explore diverse technology roadmaps, accelerate the cultivation of typical application scenarios, strengthen concept validation, commercialization validation and engineering and industrialization adaptation of frontier technologies in the industrial base, and promote the efficient transformation of frontier technology innovation outcomes.