--- date: 2026-09-29 subject: "Hainan spaceport adds two launch pads | Science ministry names chip and machine-tool targets | Fusion magnet casings shipped" --- **Hainan's commercial spaceport finished two more pads** today, and once its new tracking-and-control and maritime recovery systems are complete, the site is planned to handle more than 60 launches a year. **China's science ministry set 2026-2030 research priorities** that put integrated circuits, industrial machine tools and high-end instruments at the center of a full-chain effort to remove bottlenecks in the country's innovation chain. **A state heavy-equipment maker shipped fusion magnet casings** for BEST, a compact experimental tokamak intended to bridge the engineering gap between experimental and demonstration fusion reactors. # Top Stories - **Hainan commercial spaceport completes two more launch pads, aiming for 60-plus launches a year** — Main construction on the second phase of the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site finished today, and integrated rehearsals began immediately, ITHome reports. Once the new pads, a tracking-and-control system and a maritime recovery system are complete, the site is planned to handle more than 60 launches a year, with launch, tracking and recovery in one place. The two general-purpose pads serve two-stage liquid-propellant rockets under 5 meters in diameter, a class that includes the Long March 12B. Pads 1 and 2 are already in routine operation at the spaceport, which flew its first launch on Nov. 30, 2024. Yuan Shiying, deputy director of the Wenchang International Aerospace City administration, has said pads 3 and 4 will gain launch capability by the end of this year. [ITHome](https://www.ithome.com/1/008/240.htm) [state media] - **Science ministry names chips, machine tools and high-end instruments as 2026-2030 chokepoint targets** — Science and Technology Minister Yin Hejun set out his ministry's work priorities for 2026-2030 at a State Council Information Office press conference, Global Times reports. The ministry, which runs China's national research programs, will push a full-chain effort on integrated circuits, industrial machine tools and high-end instruments to "break every chokepoint and blockage" in the innovation chain. It will also deploy a new batch of national major science and technology projects aimed at 2035 and fully launch the 2026-2030 national key research and development projects. Frontier research is to be strengthened in artificial intelligence, quantum science, biotechnology and brain-computer interfaces, devices that link the brain directly to a computer. [Global Times](https://china.huanqiu.com/article/4TPJot4gbdV) [state media] - **State heavy-equipment maker ships magnet casings for claimed world-first compact fusion device** — Sinomach Heavy Equipment Group, a state manufacturer, shipped all eight toroidal-field coil boxes for the BEST fusion device from its Deyang base on Sunday, Science and Technology Daily reports. The paper calls BEST, the Burning plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak, the world's first compact fusion-energy experimental device, built to bridge the engineering gap between experimental and demonstration reactors. A tokamak uses powerful magnetic fields to hold superheated plasma in a ring so that atomic nuclei fuse and release energy. The coil boxes encase the magnets that produce that ring-shaped field and must work for long periods at ultra-low temperature, in ultra-strong fields and under extreme stress. Building the full set took 14 months. [Science and Technology Daily](https://epaper.stdaily.com/statics/technology-site/index.html#/home?isDetail=1¤tNewsId=14b7510ad0024e7197571a37080375fd¤tVersionName=01%C2%B7%E7%AC%AC01%E7%89%88%EF%BC%9A%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A5%E8%A6%81%E9%97%BB¤tVersion=1&timeValue=2026-09-29) [state media] - **Memory-interface chipmaker Montage starts mass production of faster DDR5 clock chips** — Montage Technology says its CK01P clock driver chip for DDR5 memory is in full mass production at up to 9,200 MT/s, or million data transfers per second, CnBeta reports. Clock driver chips sit on memory modules and distribute the timing signal that lets memory move data reliably at high speed. Montage's RCD05 chip for server memory has also entered mass production, running about 11% faster than the RCD04 chip already on the market. Chinese memory maker CXMT (ChangXin Memory Technologies) has launched DDR5 modules at up to 8,000 MT/s, and the new clock chip should let platforms validate faster memory kits. Montage President Stephen Tai said AI applications moving onto personal computers are raising demands on memory bandwidth, signal integrity and energy efficiency. [CnBeta](https://www.cnbeta.com.tw/articles/tech/1580002.htm) - **Shandong pilot plant makes hydrogen from seawater without using fresh water** — A domestically developed system that splits raw seawater into hydrogen while also extracting strategic elements passed its acceptance review in Rizhao, Shandong, after running stably for more than 1,000 hours, Science and Technology Daily reports. It skips the usual desalination step, which the team says required solving the scaling and corrosion that seawater causes, and it cuts its electricity use with waste heat from nearby steelworks. Academician Xu Tongwen said the approach offers a feasible route to low-cost, large-scale green hydrogen from the ocean. The pilot plant makes about 23 metric tons of hydrogen a year. The paper says that hydrogen cuts carbon dioxide emissions by about 460 metric tons a year. [Science and Technology Daily](https://epaper.stdaily.com/statics/technology-site/index.html#/home?isDetail=1¤tNewsId=65c9dd5e9f7444ddb3187669c31b86b0¤tVersionName=01%C2%B7%E7%AC%AC01%E7%89%88%EF%BC%9A%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A5%E8%A6%81%E9%97%BB¤tVersion=1&timeValue=2026-09-29) [state media] # Policy & Regulation - **Twelve agencies target 10-plus AI applications in China's multimodal freight network by 2030** — The Ministry of Transport and 11 other departments jointly issued a 2026-2030 action plan on multimodal transport, freight that moves across rail, road and water in one chain, Yicai reports. Among the equipment it promotes are smart checkpoints, automated sorting, smart containers and remote-controlled gantry cranes, the large cranes that lift containers between ships, trains and trucks. On the software side, the plan calls for multimodal datasets, AI models built for the freight sector and AI agents. By 2030 it targets 10 or more AI application scenarios, including transport-plan generation, demand forecasting and dynamic route optimization. [Yicai](https://www.yicai.com/brief/103381404.html) # AI & Foundation Models - **Alibaba's speech synthesis model ranks first on a third-party voice leaderboard** — Alibaba's Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS text-to-speech model, part of the speech series whose release CTD reported [September 23rd](https://chinatechdaily.org/archive/china-daily/2026-09-23/), ranked first on the Controlled Voice Arena, a speech leaderboard run by benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis, Leiphone reports. Its Elo score of 1,177 is a relative rating built from head-to-head comparisons between models. The model carries one voice naturally across languages and dialects, and users can set emotion, speaking speed and delivery style through instructions. [Leiphone](https://www.leiphone.com/category/industrynews/PeujvZKDt4TjyaPK.html) - **State internet registry counts more than 700 million generative AI users in China** — China had more than 700 million generative AI users as of mid-2026, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a newly released report. CNNIC is the state body that runs the country's internet address registry and tracks internet use. China's computing capacity dedicated to AI stood at 2,185 EFLOPS as of June, nearly triple the year-earlier level; one EFLOPS is a quintillion calculations per second. The report also says China's first fully domestic 100,000-card AI supercluster is in operation, with its chips, storage, networking and cooling all built on domestically controllable technology. CNNIC's Policy and International Cooperation Institute presented the report at the 7th China Internet Infrastructure Resources Conference, ITHome reports. [ITHome](https://www.ithome.com/1/008/245.htm) [state media] # Chips & Semiconductors - **Rare-metals group Vital switches on an optical chip wafer fab in Wuhan** — Xiandao Xinguang, the Wuhan subsidiary of Vital Technology Group, ran its wafer fab's production line end to end, Yicai reports. The fab anchors a 12 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) base for compound semiconductors, chips made from two or more elements, such as indium and phosphorus, that emit or detect light. It runs indium phosphide and gallium arsenide wafer lines for laser and detector chips, according to EE Times China, which calls Vital a global leader in rare metals. The subsidiary aims to end long reliance on imported high-end chips of this kind. A cleanroom contractor's post on Sina Finance has said that the base will be one of the few domestic plants able to run the full chain from substrate to finished devices. With the line connected, the fab moves into process qualification and product introduction. [Yicai](https://www.yicai.com/brief/103381287.html) [EE Times China](https://www.eet-china.com/mp/a409359.html) [Sina Finance](https://finance.sina.com.cn/wm/2026-04-25/doc-inhvscxq2765024.shtml) # Robotics & Autonomous Systems - **Dongfeng-Stellantis venture picks Chinese self-driving firm Momenta for new Peugeot and Jeep models** — Shenlong Technology, a new venture of Dongfeng, Stellantis and Hubei state investors, signed a global partnership with Momenta, Jiemian reports. The two will develop a high-level driver-assistance system for Peugeot and Jeep models sold in China and Europe. The system builds on Momenta's R7 world model, an AI model that predicts how a driving scene will unfold so the car can plan its moves. An unnamed intelligent-driving executive said only Huawei and Momenta lead domestically in high-level driver assistance, and that Huawei faces more external restrictions and bundles its software with hardware. Zeng Zhiling, a forecasting director at GlobalData, said differing rules and road conditions mean China and Europe likely need separate development projects. Shenlong plans four battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models, to be built in Wuhan from 2027. [Jiemian News](https://www.jiemian.com/article/15146980.html) # Quantum & Frontier Science - **Chinese drillship recovers deep-ocean hard-rock core, joining the U.S. and Japan** — China's drillship Mengxiang recovered a 4.27-meter core of basalt, the volcanic rock that forms ocean crust, from the South China Sea's deep basin with a domestically developed coring tool, Science and Technology Daily reports. That makes China the third country, after the United States and Japan, to recover hard-rock samples from a deep ocean basin with a drilling vessel, according to the paper. Working in about 4,100 meters of water, the ship reached a maximum drilled depth of 4,929.17 meters and set a record for the deepest water in which China has drilled on its own. Two remotely operated vehicles, uncrewed submersibles piloted from the deck, logged hundreds of hours at those depths. For the first time, the team also processed cores on board to international ocean-drilling standards, from sorting and splitting through scanning and testing. [Science and Technology Daily](https://epaper.stdaily.com/statics/technology-site/index.html#/home?isDetail=1¤tNewsId=b1030f2221fb426cb663ad985013926f¤tVersionName=01%C2%B7%E7%AC%AC01%E7%89%88%EF%BC%9A%E4%BB%8A%E6%97%A5%E8%A6%81%E9%97%BB¤tVersion=1&timeValue=2026-09-29) [state media] - **Chinese Academy of Sciences launches a program to study dark matter, new elements and synthetic cells** — The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the state's largest research organization, launched a "Scientific Frontier Extreme Breakthrough Program" with its first 10 projects, ITHome reports. The projects address four problem areas: synthesizing new elements, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, microscopic measurement of chemical bonds, and artificially synthesized cells. CAS Vice President Zhou Qi said the program will rely on open, shared use of major research facilities and on AI-assisted research. The program will pilot evaluation with fewer preset targets, and projects will not be judged solely by paper output or short-term results, putting "tolerance for failure" into practice, according to CAS. The next batch will prioritize physical sciences, life sciences, Earth system science and space science. [ITHome](https://www.ithome.com/1/008/318.htm) - **CAS Space to fly drug-crystallization payloads on its reusable Lihong-2 rocket in early 2027** — CAS Space, a rocket company backed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has begun joint work with Guangzhou Laboratory on space-pharmaceutical payloads, Science and Technology Daily reports. The first batch is to fly on the Lihong-2 reusable launch vehicle in the first quarter of 2027, on a suborbital flight that reaches space briefly without entering orbit. The payloads will run protein and small-molecule drug crystallization experiments. Xu Qiang, the Guangzhou Laboratory researcher leading its core team, said space may offer new routes to medicine's need for better structural data and more stable drug crystal forms. Microgravity favors higher-quality crystals of some proteins and helps cells form 3D clusters used to study disease and drug response. Guangzhou Laboratory designs the experiments, while CAS Space handles the platform, launch and return. [Science and Technology Daily](https://epaper.stdaily.com/statics/technology-site/index.html#/home?isDetail=1¤tNewsId=dc199f5c837a45a6974e875b85377ffb¤tVersionName=02%C2%B7%E7%AC%AC02%E7%89%88%EF%BC%9A%E8%A6%81%20%E9%97%BB¤tVersion=2&timeValue=2026-09-29) [state media] # Military Watch - **Chinese navy escort flotilla drills with Myanmar's navy after leaving Yangon** — The Chinese navy's 48th escort task force left Yangon port, ending the five-day port call previewed in the [September 25th](https://chinatechdaily.org/archive/china-daily/2026-09-25/) edition, China Military Online reports. It then held a joint drill with the Myanmar Navy covering formation maneuvers and communications coordination. During the visit, Chinese personnel toured a Myanmar Navy training base. Myanmar Navy Chief of Staff Thein Htoo called the visit an important opportunity for the two navies to enhance mutual trust. A deck reception drew military attaches from Pakistan, Thailand and Laos. [China Military Online](http://www.81.cn/yw_208727/16489955.html) [state media] - **China and Laos open a joint military air-training center at a Laotian airfield** — A China-Laos joint military support and training center at Ban Keun Airport and a China-Laos Friendship Aviation Academy have begun operating, per China's Ministry of National Defense (MND). The facilities are meant to help Laos strengthen training of its air force pilots and will be kept running jointly by both sides. MND said their construction and use comply with both countries' laws and with international law and practice, and "do not target any third party." [The Paper](https://m.thepaper.cn/detail/34170897) [govt]