Multiple industry tracks are building momentum to unlock new growth opportunities in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period

In 2030, the scale of China’s core commercial aerospace industry is expected to reach RMB 1.67 trillion, and the scale of the core intelligent economy industry is expected to reach RMB 12.6 trillion… At the 2026 CECAD Forum held on April 2, multiple newly published research results show that during the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” period, emerging pillar industries and the artificial intelligence industry sector will maintain a rapid growth momentum, opening up new room for growth.

This year’s Government Work Report proposed “building new emerging pillar industries such as integrated circuits, aerospace, biopharmaceuticals, and the low-altitude economy,” pointing the direction for efforts to accelerate the growth and expansion of emerging pillar industries.

Chen Yanbin, Director of the Institute of Industrial Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that in 2025, the output value of six emerging pillar industries is already close to RMB 6 trillion, and it is expected that by 2030 the related output value could double—or even more—expanding to over RMB 10 trillion.

“To keep China’s economy steady, maintain economic operations within a reasonable range, we must find new growth engines and new sources of momentum. Emerging pillar industries are an important support and guarantee for expanding employment capacity, increasing fiscal revenue, stabilizing social expectations, and building development confidence. More importantly, emerging pillar industries have strong industrial linkages and spillover effects, and can create a multiplier effect of ‘one industry thrives and a hundred industries prosper,’” he said.

Taking commercial aerospace and biomanufacturing as examples, the report titled “Research on the Trend of High-Quality Development of China’s Commercial Aerospace” released on the same day shows that, based on estimates, in 2025 the scale of China’s core commercial aerospace industry reached RMB 1.01 trillion, up nearly 7% year on year. During the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” period, the compound annual growth rate of the core commercial aerospace industry is expected to reach around 11%, and the core industry scale is expected to reach RMB 1.67 trillion by 2030. In addition, in the field of biomanufacturing, the report “Research on AI Empowering Biomanufacturing” estimates that the scale of China’s synthetic biology manufacturing industry in 2027 will exceed RMB 170 billion.

Guang Bing, Director of the Institute of Industrial Economics at the China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology (CAEIT), believes that during the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” period, development of emerging industries will shift from “expansion in volume” to “quality improvement.” In the future, it will be necessary to focus on innovation transformation, regional coordination, application of scenarios, and element support, among other areas. This includes increasing investment in basic research, with a focus on supporting original breakthroughs “from 0 to 1,” cultivating high-level innovation carriers, and carrying out large-scale application demonstration actions for new technologies, new products, and new scenarios. It will also gradually open scenario projects and landmark scenario projects, and promote demonstration and application of new technologies such as the low-altitude economy and intelligent robots.

Qiao Biao, Deputy Director of the Planning Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the breakout point for emerging industries often is not necessarily a technological breakthrough, but rather a “chemical reaction” between “technology + scenarios.” “For an industry to stand on solid ground and go far, it doesn’t rely on one or two leading technologies, but on coordinated development across the entire industrial ecosystem. We need to let innovation factors flow freely, ensure smooth connections between all links, and enable enterprises of different types to find their own positions,” he said.

As new forms of the intelligent economy begin to take shape, they are increasingly becoming an important engine driving the transformation and upgrading of the economy, as well as a new growth pole. The report “Research on the Development of the Intelligent Economy,” released at the forum, shows that in 2025, the core intelligent economy’s revenue scale reached RMB 16.7k, with a three-year compound growth rate of over 54%. It is expected that by 2030 the scale will reach RMB 12.6 trillion, accounting for 25.1% of revenue from digital industry business.

“China’s intelligent economy is still in a preliminary stage, where rules and algorithms dominate and the capabilities of large models have only been initially embedded.” Gao Yingxuan, Deputy Director of the Institute of Informatization and Software Industry Research at CAEIT, said that in the future, ten new quality areas worth watching include the acceleration of large-model commercialization, the full establishment of the data market, the rapid development of “AI + terminals,” and the role of intelligence in leading industrial transformation.

Participants said that during the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” period, it is necessary to speed up the promotion of “AI+” enabling traditional industries, open up new room for economic growth as soon as possible, cultivate new models, and build stronger new momentum.

Wang Yiming, former Vice Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that during the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” period, global science and technology innovation will enter a period of dense and active activity, with frontier technologies emerging in clusters. Artificial intelligence is the core driving force of the new round of technological revolution. The deep integration and rapid iteration and upgrading of big data, large models, and massive computing power will drive the development of artificial intelligence toward directions such as autonomous learning, enhanced human-machine collaboration intelligence, and network-based swarm intelligence. This will break through the boundaries of traditional production possibilities and bring profound changes and innovations across many industry sectors.

“Technologies such as artificial intelligence are pushing industrial systems to move up toward self-learning, self-optimization, and intelligent decision-making.” Zhang Li, President of CAEIT, said that it is necessary to thoroughly implement the special action plan for “AI+ manufacturing,” accelerate application empowerment in key industries, and cultivate a new ecosystem for the integrated development of intelligent manufacturing. While fully releasing the momentum of data factor-driven development, it is also important to actively participate in the formulation of global data security rules, and promote broad-based sharing of digital technologies.

(The intern Dong Yujun also contributed to this article.)