At a recent press conference, Li Chao, spokesman of the National Development and Reform Commission, responded to reporters' hot issues such as embodied intelligence, humanoid robots, ultra-long-term treasury bonds, infrastructure REITs, new energy storage and hydrogen energy.
He specifically mentioned that at present, the installed capacity of new energy storage in China has exceeded 100 million kilowatts, which is more than 30 times that of the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan (2020) and accounts for more than 40% of the global total.
In the next step, the state will encourage the parallel development of a variety of new energy storage and hydrogen energy technology routes, advance them in an orderly manner, and provide solid support for building a safer, more flexible and cleaner new power system.
The humanoid robot boom needs to be guarded against "rushing"
Li Chao reminded: The development of humanoid robots should be "fast", but it should also prevent "bubbles".
He said that in recent years, driven by technological innovation and market demand, the embodied intelligence industry represented by humanoid robots is growing rapidly - with an annual growth rate of more than 50%. Some institutions predict that by 2030, the market size is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.
But at the same time, the industry is also worried: the technical route, business model and application scenarios are not fully mature; More and more capital is pouring in, and there are more than 150 humanoid robot companies across the country, and the number is still increasing rapidly; More than half of them are startups or crossover from other industries.
Li Chao pointed out that encouraging innovation is a good thing, but we also need to be wary of risks: for example, a large number of companies launch highly homogeneous products, leading to "clustering" listings, which not only wastes resources, but may also squeeze the R&D space with real technological breakthroughs.
To put it simply: be calm under the boom and avoid rushing up and reinventing the wheel.
Standardize the development of embodied intelligence, build standards, attack technology, and build platforms
In order to promote the healthy and orderly development of embodied intelligent industries (such as humanoid robots), Li Chao said that guidance will be strengthened from three aspects:
Establish standards and thresholds: accelerate the formulation of industry standards and evaluation systems, establish "access" and "exit" mechanisms, prevent low-level duplicate competition, and create a fair market environment; Attack technology and break bottlenecks: Support enterprises, universities and scientific research institutions to jointly tackle key technologies, such as making the robot's "brain" (decision-making) and "cerebellum" (motion control) better coordinate, optimizing the cooperation between cloud and terminal computing power, integrating simulation and real data, etc., to solve the "bottleneck" problem in industrial development; Build a platform and promote implementation: Accelerate the construction of infrastructure such as training platforms and pilot bases, promote the open sharing of technology, data and resources nationwide, and help embodied intelligent products be used in real scenarios more quickly.
It is necessary to encourage innovation and standardize development - only with standards, technology and platforms can we go further.
Promote energy storage and hydrogen energy through multiple routes to support new power systems
Li Chao said that our country's new energy storage and hydrogen energy industry is developing rapidly: the installed capacity of new energy storage in China has exceeded 100 million kilowatts, which is more than 30 times that of 2020 (the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan) and accounts for more than 40% of the global total
Next, the country will make efforts from three aspects to create a better development environment for emerging industries such as energy storage and hydrogen energy:
Let energy storage "make money": Deepen the reform of the electricity market, support energy storage projects to participate in power trading and auxiliary services (such as peak shaving, frequency regulation, backup, etc.), and obtain reasonable benefits through market-oriented mechanisms. Promote the use of green hydrogen: Coordinate the production and application of green hydrogen, ammonia, and alcohol, promote large-scale use in key industries (such as chemicals, transportation, and steel), and build infrastructure such as hydrogen production, transportation, and storage in advance to reduce overall costs. Parallel breakthroughs in multiple routes of technology: Launch industrial innovation projects, support leading enterprises to cooperate with universities, scientific research institutions and upstream and downstream enterprises to simultaneously promote technology research and development, product upgrades, facility construction and demonstration applications for different application scenarios, and encourage the orderly development of a variety of new energy storage and hydrogen energy technology routes.
The goal is very clear, not to bet on a single technology, but to let the market and technology jointly choose the optimal path to provide solid support for the construction of a new power system.
Special treasury bonds + REITs: two-wheel drive major project construction
Li Chao introduced the progress of two important policy tools:
1. Ultra-long-term special treasury bonds support the "double" construction
In order to promote security capacity building in major national strategic tasks and key areas (i.e., "two-fold" construction), the state has arranged 700 billion yuan of ultra-long-term special treasury bonds in 2023 and 800 billion yuan in 2024 to support 1,465 and 1,459 "hard investment" projects respectively. These projects are strategic, forward-looking and overall in nature
At the same time, the state is also promoting "soft construction" such as planning, policies and institutional mechanisms, and has introduced a series of supporting measures.
2. Infrastructure REITs continue to expand
Since its launch in 2020, the coverage of infrastructure REITs (real estate investment trusts) has been expanding: initially only including warehousing and logistics, toll roads, industrial parks, municipal facilities, etc.; later gradually joined clean energy, data centers, affordable rental housing, water conservancy, cultural tourism, consumer infrastructure and other fields
Up to now, the scope of REITs issuance has covered 12 major industries and 52 types of assets, of which 18 types of assets in 10 industries have completed their first listing, providing an effective channel for revitalizing existing assets and attracting social capital.
The state not only uses "real money" to invest in major projects, but also uses financial instruments to activate the vitality of infrastructure.
Jingtai view: This press conference is ostensibly a policy interpretation, but in fact it is a "cooling-off period reminder" for the state to invest in science and technology.
It tells the market: humanoid robots can be popular, but they can't go crazy; hydrogen energy storage should be fast, but not biased; money will continue to be invested, but it must be spent on the blade. For investors, the biggest opportunity is not in the "hottest story", but in the real demand for cross-verification of policy and technology.
