These seven areas where China has already surpassed the rest of the world

Chinese domination is impressive, sometimes coupled with the threat of a technological monopoly. Small illustration in seven sectors.

The race with the United States is fierce. More than 8 billion euros have already been invested to make the Middle Kingdom the world champion in computing speed and in the quantum interneta technology that allows for example to distribute quantum keys by satellite ten times faster than via ground devices.

The Hefei University of Science and Technology campus is home to one of China’s most strategic research centers, direct competitor of Googlee in the field of quantum physics: the “Quantum Information and Quantum Physics Center of Excellence”, headed by Pan Jianwei. Designated as one of the hundred most influential people in the world by the American magazine Time in 2018he leads a team of several hundred researchers.

Under him, Hefei became the heart of Chinese quantum supremacy thanks to his work and a computer, Jiuzhang, named after an old mathematical text. A reference to Chinese Antiquity for a great leap forward in the field of calculation. While the best conventional supercomputer would need 2.5 billion years to calculate the results of this operation with the same results, Jiuzhang only needs three minutes.

According to the results published by the Hefei researchers, Professor Pan’s device would even be 10 billion times more powerful than Google’s processor who had held the crown since 2019. Several research centers are thus being built throughout the country on the model of the one in Hefei.

Such is the Chinese paradox: while still fueled by coal – more than 100 gigawatts of coal-fired power plants having been approved in 2022 – China is responsible for 40% of new solar projects in recent years. The country accounts for no less than 42% of jobs in the sector, far ahead of the European Union, India and the United States. The efforts made by China in renewable energies, electric vehicles or “low carbon” technologies such as hydrogen or batteries, are considerable.

“China is installing wind farms and solar parks much faster than any other country”, notes Generation Investment Management, the investment company co-founded by Al Gore. No country invests as much as China in this sector: 250 billion dollars in 2021according to Bloomberg NEF, when the first historical polluter, the United States, invests only 114 billion. In 2022, China thus accounted for 59% of the electric vehicle market worldwide.

The Chinese government has designated 6G as one of its priority projects for 2023, with commercialization of services planned for 2025. The country, already at the forefront in the field of 5G with more than 2.3 billion base stations installed in the country, i.e. 60% of global coverage, is further accelerating in this area of ​​mobile Internet access. Ultra fast.

6G technology enables better integration of networks between the earth, the atmospheric layer and space to make communication faster and easier. Satellite navigation, agriculture, ocean studies and autonomous driving are areas where 6G technology will be particularly useful.

“China has already taken the advantage over the United States in the field of 5G in technology application and industrial scale, which brings more possibilities for the development of the next-generation network,” said Xiang Ligang, general manager of the Information Consumption Alliance in Beijing.

Already nearly half of the world’s 6G patent applications come from China, according to a report by analyst firm Market Research Future. This report forecasts that, by 2040, the global 6G market will reach $340 billion, with an annual growth rate of more than 58% between 2030 and 2040.

A taxi ride or a bunch of radishes, the Chinese are paying more and more with their mobile phones, so the country that invented paper money might be the first to get rid of itsome traders in Beijing already no longer accepting banknotes.

An expansion largely supported in China by the strength of e-commerce. In 2020, Chinese online retail sales were $1.414 billionwhich is almost twice the size of the second largest e-commerce market, the United States.

China’s e-commerce market in 2022 is responsible for 33% of total global online retail sales. E-commerce in China now accounts for 25% of total retail sales in the country, compared to 14% in the United States. The main e-commerce players in China are all national companies: Alibaba, JD.com and Pinduoduo. Together, their marketplaces dominate e-commerce in China with a combined market share of 89.4%.

All in blue with a futuristic cockpit and a very elongated nose, the new Chinese hydrogen train reaches a record speed of 160 km/h and has a range of 600 kilometres. It can accommodate 1,500 passengers.

Hydrogen engines could be the future of transportation; in any case in China, where the country announces carbon neutrality by 2060, which implies huge investments. The market is estimated in China at 87 billion euros in 2040. China plans to go further and introduce 50,000 hydrogen cars in addition to trains within 2 years.

China, which already has the largest TGV network in the world with 42,000 km of railways, develops many technologies including these hydrogen trains, magnetic levitation trains already in service and the hyperloop. A system that uses capsules carrying passengers through vacuum tubes at speeds of up to 1,000 km/h. This train of the future tested in January this year in China uses magnets to propel the cars without friction along special tunnels.

Chinese scientists come from clone for the first time an arctic wolf, which is an endangered species. Called Maya, this wolf is an exact copy of another wolf who died last year in a zoo in northern China. Scientists cloned her from a skin sample and used a beagle dog as a surrogate mother. Two years of research and attempts were necessary before achieving this cloning and this first birth.

Today, only three private laboratories in the world clone animals, including one in Beijing, Sinogene, which has been marketing this practice since 2019. You can thus clone your domestic cat for 35,000 euros, your dog for 50,000 euros and even a horse for 85,000 euros.

Beijing has just announced that it will send a man to the Moon in 2029, just 60 years after the American Apollo 11 mission. And this is only the first stage of an ambitious journey. At the same time, China is continuing to develop its lunar research station, the first module of which could be commissioned in 2028. It is from this automatic complex that China plans to build a manned lunar base.

According to Euroconsult, a European firm specializing in the space industry, China would spend more than 10 billion dollars a year on its space program, against 55 for the United States and 4 billion for France.

“But in reality, notes a European expert, the Chinese budget is camouflaged in the military budget, which is itself particularly opaque. China is certainly spending much more than that on its program and it should continue as Chinese President Xi Jinping makes it a national priority.”

At least 300,000 people work on space projects in China18 times more than the number of souls currently occupied by NASA.