China Five-Year Plan: Steps up tech, energy and decarbonisation efforts 

China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) was officially submitted for review to the National People's Congress (NPC) on Thursday. This strategic blueprint marks a critical shift toward "high-quality development" and technological self-reliance to navigate a more volatile global environment.

Key quotes

Use high-value scenarios to drive deployment, iteration, and upgrades of model applications.

Advance general-purpose foundation models and industry-specific models in parallel.

Explore development pathways toward general artificial intelligence.

Encourage innovation in multimodal AI, agents, embodied intelligence, and swarm/group intelligence.

Speed up research on more efficient training and inference methods.

Increase long-term, stable support for young stem talents engaged in basic research.

Build high-level research universities into the main force for basic research and main base for talent cultivation,

Construct regional sci-tech innovation centres, industrial sci-tech innovation hubs.

Plans to make back up for all key industries.

For "AI+" action plan, deploy ai across the full industrial chain—design, pilot testing, production, and operations.

For "AI+" action plan, in services, including software and it, finance and commerce, transport and logistics, drive widespread use of intelligent terminals and agents.

For "AI+" action plan, develop native ai apps for efficiency and companionship.

For "AI+" action plan, explore new human–machine collaboration workforms, apply embodied intelligence in labor-shortage and high-risk jobs.

For "AI+" action plan, expand ai use in market regulation, workplace safety oversight, disaster prevention and relief, public security, cyberspace maintenance, and ecological and environmental protection.

For "AI+" action plan, explore a safe governance system coordinating natural persons, digital humans, and intelligent robots.

Vigorously develop venture capital for sci-tech, facilitate foreign investment in equities and venture capital.

Accelerate construction of national strategic talent forces around innovation needs.

Increase training and support for strategic scientists and leading sci-tech research talents.

On university degrees: make unconventional arrangements for urgently needed disciplines in emerging fields like AI, integrated circuits.

Coordinate the orderly construction of AI data centres, promote large-scale green development of AI data centres.

Steadily promote deployment and application of large-scale AI models in govt sector.

Promote establishment of AI governance framework with broad intl participation.

Build open global ai ecosystem, support global south countries in strengthening AI capabilities.

Severely crack down on infiltration, sabotage, subversion, and separatist activities by hostile forces.

Prioritize safeguarding major security issues concerning the long-term stability of the country.

Strengthen the fight against sanctions, interference and long-arm jurisdiction.