BEIJING, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) directly administered by the central government have set work priorities in their push to enhance core functions and sharpen core competitiveness as they strive to seize new opportunities, especially in the age of AI.
The central SOEs, a major pillar of the national economy, aim to enhance their strategic functions by increasing investment in important industries and key areas. They are also working to strengthen advanced manufacturing. At the same time, they will focus on raising the quality and efficiency of development, anchored in value creation and improved performance.
This has been revealed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council, China's state-asset regulator, at a press conference on Monday.
Pang Xiaogang, deputy head of the SASAC, said that strengthening scientific and technological innovation will be crucial for the central SOEs, and the government will provide targeted guidance, encouraging them to enhance their capacity in the supply of leading technologies, key core technologies and generic technologies in the years to come.
INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE OPTIMIZATION
Pang said a specific five-year plan for the central SOEs' development has been formulated for the 2026-2030 period. This plan outlines the direction of central SOEs in the world's second-largest economy, highlighting their efforts to grow modern industries and identifying the major areas where their investments will be focused, both now and in the future.
In beefing up industrial security and resilience, the plan specifies that central SOEs should play a greater role in national defense equipment manufacturing, energy and resource production and supply, and backbone infrastructure construction.
The plan has proposed a target that by 2030, central SOEs should increase their share in the value-added industrial output from strategic emerging industries by a further 5 percentage points, as they further sharpen their strengths in industrial software and key components and take the lead in promoting AI empowerment across industries and sectors.
In the public services sector, central SOEs will be urged to increase investment in areas such as emergency response and the "six networks" initiative, which covers water networks, new-type power grids, computing power networks, next-generation communication networks, urban underground pipeline networks and logistics networks.
Pang revealed that since the beginning of this year, the SASAC has mobilized central SOEs in planning ahead for a number of major projects centering on the "six networks" initiative, with related investment of about 2 trillion yuan (about 297 billion U.S. dollars) planned for the year.
BIG ON R&D SPENDING
In the first eight months of this year, the R&D investment by central SOEs reached 591.23 billion yuan, up 2.7 percent year on year, according to data released during the conference.
Wang Shaofei, a SASAC official, told the press that the total R&D investment by central SOEs is expected to exceed 1 trillion yuan for the full year.
In the first eight months of this year, central SOEs invested 1.2 trillion yuan in strategic emerging industries, the official said, adding that this reflects sustained efforts in structural change. "Maintaining high-intensity investment in strategic high-tech fields will surely give a strong boost to such structural change."
The increase in R&D spending and investment in emerging sectors by Chinese central SOEs has been matched by strong performance data.
Data released by the SASAC showed that during the January-August period, central SOEs generated a cumulative value added of 7.2 trillion yuan and total profits of 1.8 trillion yuan, both maintaining positive growth.
During the same period, the profit margin on operating revenue of central SOEs rose by 0.2 percentage points year on year to 7.5 percent, the data showed.
As of the end of August, the total assets of China's central SOEs reached 99.3 trillion yuan, up 4.2 percent year on year, the data showed. Wang predicted that total assets will hit a new milestone by the end of the year.
SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE AI AGE
With AI-related technological innovations entering an unprecedentedly active period, it is critical for central SOEs to seize new opportunities and address the challenges posed by the rapid development and cross-sector integration of the intelligent economy.
Dai Xi, a SASAC official, said that in recent years, the SASAC has guided and urged central SOEs to use the "AI+" initiative as a lever to achieve multiple breakthroughs and solid advancement in fields such as applications, data, computing power, models and ecosystems by building on their own resource endowments.
Looking ahead to the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030), the SASAC will balance development and security, and encourage the central SOEs to seize new opportunities in the intelligent economy, and promote AI's integration into the real economy and inclusive development.
Specifically, investment in computing power networks will continue, as the country aims to build eco-friendly intelligent computing centers using more direct green electricity supply.
Focusing on the industrial sector, central SOEs will also seek to build "AI+" industrial communities where they play a leading role in collaborative efforts by all parties to build up a pipeline of strategic, high-value application scenarios, and accelerate the large-scale deployment of AI on the front lines of production, Dai said. ■
