Chongqing Science and Technology Bureau announced the notice regarding the application for key research and development projects, which Sichuan and Chongqing will jointly implement in 2021.

This year, the two cities will contribute 20 million yuan each (about 3.1 million U.S. dollars) to jointly make technological breakthroughs in the four fields, namely artificial intelligence, healthcare, eco-environmental protection, and modern agriculture.

Compared with last year, the latter two cooperation fields have been newly added, and the amount of funding for a single project has doubled.

Efforts are intensified to promote sci-tech innovation 

Those key R&D projects aim to pool the superior sci-tech resources of Sichuan and Chongqing, jointly push forward with regional collaborative innovation, and further carry out the cooperation plan of sci-tech innovation in the Chengdu-Chongqing region.

In the fields of eco-environmental protection and modern agriculture, Sichuan and Chongqing boast respective advantages.

Specifically, they will move faster to deepen cross-basin and -regional cooperation on eco-environmental protection in scientific research, implement major ecological restoration projects, jointly build the ecological shield in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and facilitate the implementation of the Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement on the Construction of Chengdu-Chongqing Modern Efficient Characteristic Agricultural Belt signed by Sichuan and Chongqing.

In addition, the amount of financial support for a single project has been increased to a maximum of 2 million yuan this year. Thus, they further explore ways to use government funds across provinces.

This year, Chongqing Science and Technology Bureau searched and shortlisted 32 key project tasks, made the first attempt for joint project task discussions among the heads of competent industry authorities and industry technical experts in Sichuan and Chongqing, and highlighted the source of task demand and the advanced content of the collaboration between Sichuan and Chongqing.

It was determined that financial support would be granted to 16 projects, including two, three, five, and six in the fields of healthcare, eco-environmental protection, artificial intelligence, and modern agriculture, respectively.

Significant progress has been made in 2020 projects

"Last year, all the projects supported by the municipality are progressing steadily as planned, and some have made technological breakthroughs and remarkable achievements," said the relevant person in charge at Chongqing Science and Technology Bureau.

In 2020, Sichuan and Chongqing started to implement the first batch of key R&D projects jointly. Each granted 10 million yuan to make breakthroughs of common core technologies in artificial intelligence and healthcare.

Among the projects funded by Chongqing, the "construction of a low-orbit satellite navigation enhancement system" undertaken by Macro Net Communication Co., Ltd. has completed the development and ground test of test satellite payload in the space segment, the development of a terminal prototype, the construction of ground gateway stations, and the network connection of gateway stations and data processing center.

The company has established a global unified high-precision space-time benchmark, realized the joint processing technology of satellite-based and ground-based observations, as well as a high-precision positioning algorithm with centimeter-level precision and minute-level convergence time.

Besides, the "R&D and application of the whole-process intelligent management platform for major infectious diseases" undertaken by Chongqing Public Health Medical Center has accomplished some indicators for performance assessment ahead of time.

The center has completed the construction of the hardware environment and the functional tests of the main software and is specifying the software requirements. It is expected to carry out the trial operation of the software platform in June.