China's domestically developed "Kunlong" AG600 aircraft is seen on the water at Zhanghe Airport in Jingmen, Central China's Hubei Province. Photo: VCG

During the 2025 National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, as festive celebrations filled the country, several major Chinese science and technology projects have made fresh progress.

China continues to push the frontiers of technologies with a series of landmark achievements. Recent breakthroughs span multiple cutting-edge fields, from advanced fusion energy and renewable power trials to the test flights of next-generation large amphibious aircraft.

These milestones have underscored the nation's growing scientific prowess and its ability to turn ambitious innovation into tangible results, Ma Jihua, a veteran tech analyst, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

At the same time, these breakthroughs serve as valuable references for global clean energy development, aviation equipment upgrades, and high-end manufacturing, while also helping to promote international scientific and technological exchange and cooperation, highlighting China's increasingly significant role in the global innovation ecosystem, Ma said.

Multiple milestones

On October 1, in Hefei, East China's Anhui Province, the Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST), a compact fusion experiment device under construction project, had reached a major milestone with the successful installation of its first key component, the Dewar base, marking progress toward the world's first electricity generation from fusion power, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Fusion energy, often hailed as the ideal "ultimate energy source," seeks to replicate the nuclear fusion process that powers the sun. Unlike previous fusion experimental devices, BEST is designed to demonstrate actual "burning" of deuterium-tritium plasma. Since the project's full-scale assembly began in May this year, the facility has attracted significant public attention, the report said.

Weighing more than 400 tons, measuring about 18 meters in diameter and 5 meters in height, the Dewar base is not only the heaviest single component of BEST's main machine, but also the largest vacuum component ever produced in China's fusion research field.

According to Huang Xiongyi, associate research fellow with the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Plasma Physics, the development of the Dewar base required breakthroughs in multiple advanced technical areas, including high-precision forming and welding, millimeter-scale deformation control, and ultra-high vacuum sealing.

With the Dewar base successfully installed, other core components of the main machine will be gradually assembled, and the BEST device is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027.

The following day, on October 2, another major tech breakthrough took place in Guazhou, Northwest China's Gansu Province, where the world's first "dual-tower, single-machine" concentrated solar thermal storage power plant began its trial operation, CCTV News reported.

As the heliostats make their final adjustments to track the sun, focusing sunlight precisely onto the top of the east tower, the tower gradually lights up—signaling the successful trial operation of the entire system, the report said. The west tower was also successfully debugged.

Some 27,000 heliostats concentrate sunlight onto two receiver towers, each roughly 200 meters high, turning ordinary sunlight into stable, clean electricity.

The system's maximum thermal storage capacity is equivalent to 600,000 kWh, allowing it to supply power continuously for six hours. In addition to using direct solar heat, it can also convert excess electricity from wind and photovoltaic sources into thermal energy for storage.

Recently, China's domestically developed AG600 "Kunlong" large civilian amphibious aircraft reached another major milestone. Its third production model rolled off the assembly line and successfully completed its test flight, while major forward fuselage components of the fourth unit were delivered to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the CCTV News reported. The achievement marks a major step for the AG600 program, moving from type certification to small-batch production.

Developed to meet the urgent needs in forest firefighting and maritime rescue, the AG600 "Kunlong" is China's first domestically designed large special-purpose aircraft and the world's heaviest civilian amphibious aircraft, the report said.

Shaping the future

Behind these "hard-core" breakthroughs lies a snapshot of the significant leap in China's overall science and technology innovation system.

Commenting on the latest achievements, Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday that China's tech success shows how putting innovation at the core, having clear road maps for frontier research, and strong policy backing have powered rapid progress. Meanwhile, a full industrial chain, tight cooperation among firms, and a steady flow of skilled talent from universities have turned ideas into real breakthroughs, Wang said.

Experts noted that over a decade ago, China's high-end equipment and core technologies were largely limited to imports and imitations. Today, however, China is building a comprehensive innovation chain across fields such as new energy, aerospace, artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, biomedicine, and quantum information. 

"Faster translation of basic research, combined with the integrated application of new materials, advanced manufacturing, and data intelligence, is turning once impossible projects into reality," Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Beijing-based Information Consumption Alliance, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

In parallel, China's innovation ecosystem is steadily improving. The national system of key laboratories has been comprehensively upgraded, computing infrastructure expanded, and a new generation of researchers is gradually becoming the backbone of scientific research, industry data shows. 

From 2020 to 2024, the added value of China's equipment manufacturing sector grew at an average annual rate of 7.9 percent, while that of the high-tech manufacturing sector increased by an average of 8.7 percent per year, according to the People's Daily.

China's investment in science and technology continues to climb. In 2024 alone, funding for basic research reached 249.7 billion yuan, an increase of over 70 percent compared with 2020, according to the latest government data.

Moreover, China has achieved a series of major, original breakthroughs in quantum science, life science, materials science, and space science. For five consecutive years, China has ranked first worldwide in both the number of high-level international journal publications and international patent applications, official data shows.

Despite attempts by certain countries to hinder China's technological progress, the recent flurry of "major national achievements" over the National Day holidays once again underscores that China's innovation is advancing steadily and achieving continuous breakthroughs, Xiang said.