China tackles 'Darwin's Dead Sea' of innovations with new pilot platform push

BEIJING -- China is stepping up efforts to further narrow the treacherous gap between laboratory research and factory-floor mass production, a chasm in innovation dubbed the "Darwin's Dead Sea."

In manufacturing, the journey from a validated lab sample to a scalable product is laden with risks. This intermediate stage demands substantial investment to finalize design, optimize processes, and verify reliability, often rendering it an economic no-man's-land that researchers, investors, and manufacturers would rather avoid.

To cross this chasm, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has recently unveiled a new circular to accelerate the high-level, systemic build-out of manufacturing pilot platforms.

These specialized facilities are designed to serve as the critical tool for technologies to survive the high-risk, capital-intensive transition from prototype to commercial viability.

According to the key points guideline accompanying the circular, the ministry specifies a layout for platforms urgently needed by industry, targeting 37 key industrial directions and 6 critical sectors: raw materials, equipment manufacturing, consumer goods, information technology, emerging and future industries, and common needs.

The push comes as some of China's existing 2,400-plus platforms are underperforming. They are hindered by unclear functional positioning, low service levels, and insufficient impact, which fail to address the needs of China's manufacturing sector as it aspires to transition from being a global follower to a leader

Fu Mengyin, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the new circular is based on comprehensive research into the current state of China's manufacturing pilot platforms and a systematic review of bottleneck issues.

Fu said it is of great significance for comprehensively enhancing the service capacity of pilot platforms and accelerating the efficient conversion and application of major scientific and technological achievements.

The new policy move directly aligns with recommendations for formulating China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) adopted at the fourth plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee, which stresses that China should build more proof-of-concept and pilot-scale testing platforms.

Successful models provide a glimpse of the goal. At Birvice, a platform in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, dedicated to turning concepts into commercial products, enterprises can complete product finalization without building their own lines.

Xie Yufeng, the base's project director, noted the facility has helped over 300 products reach mass production.