Chengdu has never been short of innovation, and evidence of its creativity covers a span of hundreds of years.

Back in 130 BC, merchants here opened a connection to the Southern Silk road, when they made the city its starting point and it went on to serve as an international conduit for business and cultural exchanges with Central Asia. Sichuan’s silk brocade, the earliest of which came from Chengdu, entered the world’s market via the 2,000-kilometer-long route.

During the Song Dynasty (960~1279), Chengdu came up with the ‘jiaozi’, one of the world’s earliest forms of paper currency, 600 years before the European version, as recorded in the notes of the Italian traveler Marco Polo.

In the New China Chengdu showed its innovative capacity when it issued the first stock certificate. And, today, its scientific and technological developments have laid an important foundation for the city’s development and have played a role in increasing the pace of development, making it a major force in central and western China.

Chengdu is home to some of China’s most developed scientific and technological research, with 2,700 scientific research institutes and vocational and technical colleges, and 80 state-level research centers. It also has central and western China’s largest number of universities, with 42 in all, including Sichuan University and Chengdu Electronic Science and Technology University.

These are a mighty force for scientific and technological innovation and achievements and Chengdu’s university graduates help sustain its vitality.

In July 2011, it revealed a new solar battery, referred to as the “mythical bird”, which increases the photoelectric conversion efficiency of solar batteries by as much as 18 percent. This meant a big step forward for the new energy industry and put “Made-in-Chengdu” solar battery technology among the world’s best.

But that was just a reflection of the city’s scientific and technological capacity. In 2010, it had more than 31,000 patent applications, with more than 25,000 approved. By the end of 2011, it had applied for 250 national scientific and technological projects and established an auto parts innovation alliance and solar photovoltaic research center. It also had 147 new intellectual property experimentation and innovation enterprises and its productivity promotion center was recognized as a national level technology transfer demonstration center.

Chengdu was also recognized as a national biomedical materials and medical appliances industrial base.

In 2010, it got Ministry of Science and Technology approval as one of China’s first innovation and experimentation cities and got National Development and Reform Commission authorization as a national innovative city. The central government approved initial construction work on western China’s only national innovative city.

According to the Chinese Social Sciences Academy’s 2011 Chinese City Competitiveness Blue Book: Chinese City Competitiveness Report, Chengdu was at the top in scientific and technological competitiveness.