The construction list of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei International Science and Innovation Center is released. What challenges will the three regions face?

21st Century Business Herald reporter Hui Zhou Beijing report

“In the morning, in Yizhuang, we discussed a major project—cooperation in robotics industry-university-research-industry application integration and talent cultivation.” Zhao Hui, deputy general manager of Tangshan Baichuan Intelligent Co., Ltd., told reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald.

On the morning of March 27, Zhao Hui took the earliest high-speed rail from Tangshan, Hebei to Beijing. In the morning, he discussed cooperation in Yizhuang (Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area). In the afternoon, he arrived in Haidian to attend the parallel forum of the Zhongguancun Forum annual meeting—the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated innovation and high-quality development forum.

At the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated innovation and high-quality development forum, 《Implementation Measures for Advancing the Construction of the Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) International Science and Technology Innovation Center by the Three Regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei》 was released, clarifying the governance and institutional mechanisms, key tasks, and responsibility breakdown for the three regions to jointly build the international science and technology innovation center. A series of achievements were also successively released at the forum, including major demonstration projects for coordinated innovation and industrial collaboration across Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the list of the joint innovation consortiums for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the cooperation results of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Natural Science Foundation, the roster of Beijing’s concept verification platforms, the list of innovation and technology service institutions in Tianjin’s Tiankai Higher Education Innovation & Entrepreneurship Park, and the list of pilot-test verification scenario resources in Hebei, among others.

From Blueprint to Practice: Clear Division of Work Among the Three Regions

The Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2025 explicitly proposed expanding the scope of the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center construction to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

“As compared with the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing’s current innovation ecosystem has exceptionally strong pillars, relatively fragile crossbeams—some places are extremely thick, and some are extremely weak. This expansion has far-reaching significance.” Wang Maoxiang, director of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei National Technology Innovation Center, said at the forum.

In his view, at present, industrial development increasingly needs joint support from multiple industries; the boundaries between industries are disappearing. At the same time, the pace of scientific and technological development is very fast. There are no boundaries between science and technology; there are no boundaries between disciplines. Competitive innovation is no longer competition among a single main body, organization, region, or country—it has essentially evolved into competition between innovation systems. The development of industrial chains also needs to consider cost and efficiency. Meanwhile, only by dispersing industrial chains to an appropriate degree can they be better strengthened and made bigger.

“An industrial chain generally needs to be distributed reasonably by combining production factors and the market. Relying on only one region, no matter how strong it is, it is very difficult to build an innovation system.” Wang Maoxiang said. With this expansion, the Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center will become the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei International Science and Technology Innovation Center, which will strongly support coordinated development in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. It will also leverage the overall advantages of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei to improve Beijing’s innovation system.

How will the three regions’ innovation and technology collaboration be further implemented? The 《Implementation Measures for Advancing the Construction of the Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) International Science and Technology Innovation Center by the Three Regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei》 released at the above-mentioned forum clarifies that, in terms of institutional mechanisms, it will leverage the advantages of a ministerial-province jointly built mechanism led jointly by the Central Office for Science and Technology and Beijing. Both Tianjin and Hebei will participate fully, forming a coordination mechanism for promoting the construction of the science and technology innovation center in Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) under the overall coordination of the Central Office for Science and Technology. Led by Beijing, an annual key work plan and policy and task lists will be compiled.

_ (Photo: Site of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Coordinated Innovation and High-Quality Development Forum Taken by: Hui Zhou) _

In terms of key tasks, the three regions will focus precisely, each with its own deployment. Beijing will study and form a 2026 key task work plan, including plans to deploy 232 key projects and tasks. Tianjin will formulate and implement opinions, planning to produce a list of 108 work task items. Hebei will develop an action plan, planning to produce 54 division-of-work ledgers and a list of 107 annual key task items. The Xiong’an New Area and Shijiazhuang will each formulate important-pillar implementation plans. In terms of responsibility allocation, a system of “central overall coordination, coordination among ministries and commissions, and linkage among the three regions” will be established. Efforts will be strengthened to align and dock with national ministries and commissions such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, clarifying the main responsibilities of each region to ensure that all measures land effectively and produce results.

The forum also released a batch of major demonstration projects for coordinated innovation and industrial collaboration in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. These involve project investments of 100s of billions. Taking the robotics research and innovation center and the pilot-test base project as examples: Yanling Jiaye Investment invests 450 million yuan. The project will land in the Beijing Urban Subcenter Canal Business District, building a one-stop pilot-test platform integrating robotics and digital intelligent equipment integration and automation across Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and covering the North China region.

The three regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei have also each released a series of lists. For example, in Hebei: in actively co-building the Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) International Science and Technology Innovation Center, Hebei actively builds Hebei’s preferred destination for pilot tests of Beijing’s scientific and technological achievements. It will fully open scenario verification and pilot-test service resource resources, and systematically sort, integrate, and form a list of 50 pilot-test verification scenario resources in Hebei Province.

Among them, 35 scenario resource items can cover eight key industries, including modern steel, green chemicals, biopharmaceuticals, electronic information, new energy and intelligent connected vehicles, robotics, aerospace information and satellite internet, and digital industries.

How to Promote Coordinated Innovation in Industries Across Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei

In early 2014, “coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei” was elevated to a national strategy. Today, the three regions have already made clear progress in coordination in areas such as transportation. In the future, how can industrial innovation and coordination among Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei be done even better?

Zhao Hui, in an interview with reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald, said that currently their “shared factory” has already cooperated with dozens of robotics companies in Beijing, and also with some Beijing research institutes and universities.

Zhao Hui does not deny that the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta have greater advantages in robotics and other high-end manufacturing industry clusters, but Hebei also has advantages such as being geographically closer to Beijing. At the same time, Hebei has rich application scenarios and a solid working foundation, forming a robotics industrial cluster with Tangshan at its core. Baichuan Intelligent, using a model of “leading enterprises + shared resources,” has built a shared service platform focused on the design, R&D, and production manufacturing of robot non-standard products.

“We accept some non-standard product orders with very low unit prices.” Zhao Hui said. At present, the “shared factory” model has not yet accounted for the economics; it places more emphasis on policy opportunities under the construction of the Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) International Science and Technology Innovation Center, and on creating more linkages with Beijing’s innovation and technology resources.

Academician Tan Tianwei of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Beijing University of Chemical Technology offered suggestions on the coordinated layout for the biomanufacturing industry across Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei for the implementation practice of building the Beijing (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei) International Science and Technology Innovation Center.

Beijing’s goal is to build a national innovation source hub for synthetic biomanufacturing and an industry-leading zone. Tianjin, in building pilot-test platforms, also has an R&D foundation. Hebei also has an industrial foundation—for example, the biopharmaceutical industrial park in Shijiazhuang—which has formed a certain level of industrial clustering.

“Right now, we are preparing to establish an alliance for biomanufacturing in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. We also hope to leverage some innovation centers to connect everyone. That way, each party has clear division of labor and can jointly promote the construction of the international science and technology innovation center.” Tan Tianwei said.

Regarding how to avoid homogeneous competition among industries in the three regions, Tan Tianwei, in an interview with reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald, said that Beijing highlights original innovation to solve problems from 0 to 1. For stages from 1 to 10—for instance, the pilot-test stage of an industry—these can be handled by Tianjin and Hebei. For stages from 10 to N, Hebei and Tianjin can do them, and Beijing can also do the parts with “not particularly large scale but exceptionally high added value.” He also suggested that besides having division of work, the three regions should also have a good mechanism for sharing benefits. On the premise of sharing benefits, it is possible for the three regions to do a good job of industrial coordination.

From the perspective of industrial coordination experience in the Yangtze River Delta, Feng Yecheng, a member of the Party Committee and deputy dean of Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, also discussed suggestions for innovation and coordination in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. He said that the essence of regional coordination is the free flow of innovation factors. Regional coordinated development requires strengthening the joint construction of industry-university-research cooperation platforms. It is necessary to establish cross-regional mechanisms for talent exchange, resource interconnection, and benefit sharing so that factors such as talent, capital, technology, and data can be allocated efficiently. In addition, it is necessary to be driven by enterprises’ real needs: to unblock the innovation chain, guide research forces to precisely connect with pain points on the front line of the industry, and truly achieve deep integration between the innovation chain and the industrial chain.