经济学人：不可错过的创新盛宴

作者：经济学人          来源：一天一篇外刊

Most STARTUPS need time to prove that they can be trusted with investors’ money, let alone dangerous technologies. But not Fusion Energy Tech, a Chinese company based in the city of Hefei that was carved out two years ago from a nuclear-research lab. In July it announced that it would be?commercialising a plasma technology derived from fusing the nuclei of atoms, which produces a reaction much hotter than the sun. It has already developed a security-screening device using related technology that is popping up in local metro stations. Commuters walk past them every day.

大多数初创企业都需要时间来证明自己值得投资者信任，更别说企业掌握了危高危技术。然而，位于合肥的一家公司（聚变能源科技公司）却是个例外。两年前，它从一家核研究实验室中分离而出。今年七月，公司宣布将把一种源自原子核聚变的等离子体技术推向商业化，这种聚变反应释放的能量温度甚至高于太阳。更引人注目的是，这家公司已利用相关技术研发出安检设备，并在当地地铁站投入使用，如今，每天都有通勤者从这些设备旁经过。

China is fixated on beating the West in new technologies. Chinese businesses already dominate areas including electric vehicles (EVs) and lithium batteries, and are fast taking the lead in emerging fields such as humanoid robots. The country’s growing technological prowess is thanks in part to the Communist Party’s conveyor belt of innovation, which takes ideas developed in state-run labs and universities and turns them into commercial products. The process, often referred to as an “innovation chain” in policy documents, has led to rapid advances in a number of fields.

中国正专注于在新技术领域超越西方。中国企业已在电动车和锂电池等领域占据主导地位，并正迅速在包括人形机器人在内的新兴领域取得领先。日益增强的技术实力，得益于政府推动的“创新流水线”（将国有实验室和大学研发的理念转化为商业产品）。这一举措在政策文件中常被称为“创新链”，并已推动多个领域的快速进步。

A recent beneficiary of that process is Theseus, a company based in Chongqing that makes computer-vision sensors. In 2019 it was little more than a group of scientists from the state-backed Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics in the city of Xi’an, who would meet in a teahouse to discuss commercialising their work. A district government in Chongqing, hoping to develop a supply chain around their technology, provided funding and helped the scientists launch their company in an industrial zone in 2020.

这一举措的最新受益者是位于重庆的 Theseus 公司，这家公司专注于制造计算机视觉传感器。早在 2019 年，它不过是西安一家国有光学与精密机械研究所的几位科学家组成的小团队，他们常常探讨科研成果的商业化之路。为了推动围绕这项技术的产业链发展，重庆政府提供了资金支持，并在 2020年资助这些科学家在重庆创办公司。

By 2024 Theseus had become a leading player in its field. It has hired nationally renowned scientists, and in May this year announced it had developed a new display screen using AMOLED technology, which provides a sharper picture quality, in partnership with state-owned China Mobile, the country’s largest telecoms firm.

2024 年，Theseus 已经成长领域的领先者。公司不仅引进了全国知名的科学家，还在今年 5 月宣布，与最大的电信企业——中国移动合作，成功研发出一款采用 AMOLED 技术的新型显示屏，这款显示屏画质更为清晰。

State-backed research institutes, including labs and universities, are increasingly commercialising their innovations in other ways, too. Some have established marketplaces where companies can bid directly on their patents. The Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Harbin, another city, recently auctioned off the patent behind a genetically modified soyabean it had developed. In such cases an institute will often deploy technicians to the company buying the technology to help them make use of it.

包括实验室和大学在内的国有科研机构，如今也正通过多途径加速推动成果商业化。有些科研机构建立了专门的市场，让企业可以直接竞拍自己的专利。比如，位于哈尔滨的黑龙江省农业科学院，最近就拍卖了一项转基因大豆专利。在此类情况下，科研机构还会派遣技术人员前往购买该技术的企业，协助加以应用。

One gauge of the strengthening ties between China’s private sector and its research institutes is the revenue the latter collect when they sell their ideas, co-develop technology or provide consulting services. Between 2019 and 2023, the latest year available, that figure nearly doubled, to 205bn yuan ($30bn).

衡量私营部门与科研机构联系日益紧密的一个重要指标，是科研机构通过出售专利与创意、联合研发技术以及提供咨询服务所带来的收入。数据显示，从 2019 年到最新的 2023 年，收入几乎翻了一番，达到 2050 亿元人民币（约合 300 亿美元）。

The benefits of collaboration flow in both directions. In biotech, for instance, state researchers have been able to tap into private resources to aid their work, notes Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau of MERICS, a think-tank in Berlin. University researchers are often granted access to industrial fermentation facilities at local companies, which are used to harvest bacteria.

合作的好处是双向的。比如在生物技术领域，柏林智库 MERICS 的 Jeroen Groenewegen-Lau 指出，国家科研人员能够借助私营部门的资源来推动他们的研究。科研人员也常常获准使用当地企业的工业发酵设备，以便培育和收集实验菌群。

Hefei offers perhaps the best example of the drawing together of China’s?scientific and business communities under state direction. The city’s government invests in private companies, builds supply chains around them and acts as an interface between labs, universities and the private sector. Fusion Energy Tech is but one of its many successes; plasma-fusion cancer treatments developed in the city are now entering trials, and quantum-secure mobile services developed there are already on the market.

合肥或许是在国家主导下推动科研界与商界融合的最佳范例。合肥政府不仅投资私营企业，还围绕它们构建供应链，并在实验室、大学与私营部门之间充当桥梁。聚变能源科技只是其中的一个成功案例；合肥研发的等离子聚变癌症治疗技术正进入临床试验，而量子安全移动通信服务也已推向市场。

作者：经济学人          来源：一天一篇外刊