China eyes multiple S&T breakthroughs in 5-year plan

BEIJING - From artificial intelligence to smog control, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) on Wednesday unveiled 60 major science and technology (S&T) breakthroughs the country aspires to make in the next five years.

"We will strive to occupy the international high ground in strategic hotspot fields and blaze the trail in cutting-edge and cross-discipline areas, achieving a series of major original achievements, technologies and products," said CAS President Bai Chunli, while unveiling the academy's 13th five-year plan spanning 2016-2020.

Key projects on its bucket list also include organ repair and reconstruction, water pollution control, research on Moon samples, a low-frequency radio telescope on the far side of the Moon and the development of a ground application system for the Mars mission.

Last week, China released images of a Mars probe and rover which the country plans to send to the Red Planet within five years.

These projects span the fields of life and health, resources and environment, new generation materials, energy, oceans, information, photoelectricity and space.

According to the plan, the country will join the world-leading club in physics, chemistry, materials science, math, ecology and Earth science by the end of 2020, while holding a series of independent intellectual property rights (IPR) and industrial technology standards.

It set the goal to double the country's 2015 IPR earnings by 2020, and help companies to create 150,000 jobs and additional revenue worth more than 4.8 trillion yuan (717 billion U.S. dollars) with the application of new technology.