Chinese President Xi Jinping on July 6 inspected the Purple Mountain Laboratories and NARI Group Corporation in Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province, to learn about the progress in making major scientific and technological breakthroughs, developing advanced manufacturing clusters and promoting high-quality development.

Over recent years, Jiangsu province has accelerated the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy, promoted in-depth cooperation among enterprises, universities and research institutions, strengthened the construction of major sci-tech and innovation platforms, and supported top scientists to lead original and pioneering sci-tech research, so as to break through bottlenecks in key and core technologies and ensure that key areas and links can fall within its own hands.

The Purple Mountain Laboratories is a major sci-tech innovation platform jointly built by Jiangsu province and Nanjing in 2018. It focuses on the basic and frontier research of future internet and endogenous security. It gathers over 1,000 researchers and has achieved a series of world-leading results in future internet, B5G/6G communication and cyber security.

Recently, the facility developed a batch of core cyber technologies, including the world's first major breakthrough in wide-area deterministic network system.

"We will keep our efforts to advance original and pioneering sci-tech research," said Liu Yunjie, academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director and chief scientist of the Purple Mountain Laboratories.

Apart from the Purple Mountain Laboratories, Jiangsu province has built a series of other major innovation platforms such as the Suzhou Laboratory and the Taihu Laboratory of Deepsea Technological Science.

Last year, the province's total R&D investment reached 330 billion yuan ($45.55 billion), and the number of invention patents owned by every 10,000 people in the province stood at 41.2. Besides, there were more than 37,000 high-tech firms in the province.

Jiangsu will give full play to its advantages as a hub of sci-tech institutions and a strong industrial province, to strengthen innovation in all links including basic research, technological breakthrough, as well as outcome translation and commercialization, concentrate its strength to strive to make major breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields, and build itself into a center of technology with global influence.