By Tang Bo 

Known for "one mountain, one water, and one saint", Shandong province is the home of Mount Taishan, the estuary of Yellow River, and the birthplace of Confucius. The Confucianism has not only nourished the spirit of Chinese people, has also deeply influenced the world.

Entering a new era, Shandong has become the pacesetter in China's leapfrog development, creating a complete industrial system and possessing a huge market potential. In 2020, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Shandong province amounted to 7.31 trillion yuan and per capital GDP exceeding 10,000 USD.

Shandong has established a well-connected infrastructure network, with 2,110 kilometers of high speed railway, 7,473 kilometers of highway, and 51,000 5G base stations.

The number of hi-tech enterprises in Shandong has surpassed 14,600, while the proportion of output value of hi-tech industry in the gross output value of industry above designated size has reached 47.10 percent in the first quarter of 2021.

Innovation driven and energetic are characteristics of today's Shandong. For example, in September 2020, the world's first commercial diesel engine with brake thermal efficiency exceeding 50 percent was officially launched by the province's Weichai Group.

In the field of quantum computing, the world record of 300 km, 404 km and 509 km for quantum key distribution has been successively broken.

Meanwhile, in the area of super computing, the Shenwei E-class supercomputer prototype, which is a new generation of the prototype system, has been successfully developed by the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan.

In April 2021, Shandong provincial government and the Ministry of Science and Technology signed a framework agreement to land the sci-tech demonstration project of "Hydrogen Enters Ten Thousand Homes", making Shandong the first demonstration province of a large scale popularization of hydrogen energy in China.

At present, Shandong is continuously optimizing its sci-tech development environment, polling high-end innovative resources, and accelerating construction of the regional innovation highland, to provide sci-tech support for building a powerful modernized province in the new era.

Shandong is also deploying the construction of major sci-tech innovation platforms, such as the Center for Ocean Mega-Science and the Jinan Science Innovation Center jointly built by the province and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 21 state key labs in operation, 6 provincial labs under construction. In addition, reforms to streamline the government, delegate power, and improve government services in the sci-tech field have been further carried out in the province, choosing the deepening reforms of project reviews, talent evaluation and institution assessment as breakthrough points, in order to build a classified evaluation system driven by quality, effectiveness and contribution.

Opening up and cooperation in sci-tech innovation is being upgraded in the province, which is aiming to build an international sci-tech cooperation community for innovation and entrepreneurship, promoting the application and transformation of high-level sci-tech results.

Looking ahead, Shandong is focusing much of its energy on sci-tech innovation, striving to become a core driver in leading high-quality economic development and improving living standards.

As the Chinese proverb says,"Nothing, not even mountains or oceans, can separate those with a shared goal", and we sincerely invite and welcome friends from around the world to share development opportunities and write a new chapter of cooperation together.

Tang Bo is Secretary of the Leading Party Group and Director of Department of Science and Technology of Shandong Province.