The finals of the 2021 Zhongguancun International Frontier Technology Innovation Competition kicked off in the Exhibition Center of the Zhongguancun Science Park on Jan 11, 2022.   

The finals of the contest takes place on Jan 11, 2022. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Glioma Targeted Diagnosis and Treatment Innovation Team, Beijing Seetrum Technology Co., Ltd., and Beijing I-Space Technology Co., Ltd. respectively won the championship, runner-up and second runner-up in the finals, sharing a million-yuan prize.

The Zhongguancun International Frontier Innovation Competition, as the "competition section" of the Zhongguancun Forum, aims to select companies and teams with cutting-edge technologies to promote their implementation.

The competition focuses on such fields as biomedicine, artificial intelligence, integrated circuits, big data and cloud computing, intelligent manufacturing and new materials, and has accumulated over 400 high-quality start-ups and teams. A number of domestic and foreign projects have been transformed in Beijing.

The contest not only unearths a number of game-changing technologies, but also becomes a cradle for unicorn companies. 

Seventeen companies, including Megvii Technology, have grown into unicorns, while eight companies including Nuocheng Jianhua have been listed on domestic and overseas exchanges, and more than 10 overseas and non-Beijing projects have settled in Beijing. 

Most of the technology and products from the contest will eventually be realized. More than 70 percent of the technologies or products of cutting-edge enterprises have been applied in major projects and activities such as the International Horticultural Exposition, Daxing International Airport, and the Winter Olympics.

This year's contest was launched in July 2021, soliciting nearly 1,000 hard technology projects from home and abroad, covering 12 cutting-edge hard technology fields like biomedicine, artificial intelligence, and integrated circuits. 

Among them, most overseas projects came from the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Singapore and Japan. 

After 24 sub-field preliminaries and finals, the top 10 in each sub-field were selected respectively, and a total of 23 projects in each sub-field participated in the final.

In addition to the competition, this event also held an exhibition of high-quality enterprises, with more than 20 participating companies bringing new technologies and products to the exhibition hall.

Technologies and products from participating companies in the exhibition hall [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

To better offer financing services for technology enterprises, this competition established the Zhongguancun Frontier Technology Investment and Financing Joint Committee, and organized a group of well-known venture capital, national teams, local teams and industrial capital to participate in investment institutions. 

In less than half a year, five investment institutions including Hillhouse Capital and Zhongguancun Venture Capital formed investment intentions with more than 20 companies in the competition, with a total investment of nearly 700 million yuan ($109.97 million).

A series of signing ceremonies between investment institutions and projects were held at the finals of the competition. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission and the Zhongguancun Administrative Committee, since 2017, have joined hands with six districts including Haidian, Pinggu and Tongzhou to build seven frontier technology centers, with a space investment of more than 78,000 square meters and 135 settled enterprises. 

The valuation of these centers exceeds 98 billion yuan, boosting the development of high-quality enterprises participating in the frontier competition.