Beijing conference highlights latest achievements in new materials and innovative applications

The 2025 Beijing New Materials Conference, held alongside the 7th Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Graphene Conference, took place in Fangshan district, Beijing, from Sunday to Tuesday. The event showcased the latest achievements in new materials and their innovative applications, highlighting the sector's vital role in advancing Beijing's leading industries and promoting the integration of regional industrial chains.

Su Guobin, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, said that new materials are the cornerstone of strategic emerging industries.

"Beijing has introduced a series of planning policies, established industrial funds to support innovation and application in the sector, and built innovation platforms to undertake numerous national-level projects," he said.

Su added that the city has also deployed municipal-level pilot testing platforms and big data centers while introducing market access policies tailored to Fangshan district to support the growth of its new materials industry.

Gong Weimi, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park, noted that Beijing serves as a key hub for new materials innovation.

Backed by 132 academicians and one-third of the country's top research teams, the capital is responsible for nearly 30 percent of China's major national projects and has achieved world-leading breakthroughs, including the development of a 32.35 tesla superconducting magnet.

Several companies and research institutes signed agreements to jointly build shared laboratories and innovation platforms, further promoting collaboration between Beijing's materials enterprises and upstream and downstream innovation resources, said Gong.

"These partnerships aim to establish a new model for developing next-generation materials driven by future-oriented planning, demand-side traction, and big data integration," he said.

Wang Yuqian, an executive of Beijing Aika Innovative Technology Co Ltd, a company specializing in exploring graphene and selected as a national-level specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative "small giant" enterprises, said that it's difficult for a single company to cover all aspects of the supply chain elaborately.

"Enterprises may place different emphasis on research and development or market application."

"For example, in cooperative projects, our company can manage to overcome challenges in downstream project implementation, and if specialized research institutes can join us in evaluating material performance — and even in promoting the establishment of industry standards — it would add significant value to our work," Wang added.