Our reporters: Sun Jie, Sun Qiru and Yuan Lu

Scientists, entrepreneurs and investors from 50 countries and regions including the United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, France, Israel, Australia and Japan gathered at the ZGC Forum, which was officially opened yesterday, to discuss the future trend of global science and technology and to see the development opportunities of emerging industries. In the collision of ideas again and again, guests and listeners captured the latest trend in global scientific and technological innovation.

Calls for the focus on basic research are rising

“China has experienced great changes in the development of science and technology, which is closely related to the great importance that China attaches to basic science.” All of applied science is based on basic science, and results in these basic sciences need to be accumulated for decades, said Edvard Moser who won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

At the forum, basic research is a top word. “For decades, mathematics has been an important support for the whole society. The important tools behind technologies such as the Internet and artificial intelligence are actually mathematics.” Shing-Tung Yau, the first Chinese winner of Fields Medal of the “Nobel Prize in Mathematics”, also said that to solve the problems of deep learning, which is now widely popular, needs in-depth researches on relevant mathematical theories.

Yu Kai, the founder of Horizon Robotics, agreed with Shing-Tung Yau at the meeting that “deep learning in artificial intelligence today is based on convolutional neural network, and this had been discovered by two professors at Harvard University in 1981. It has spanned 50 years from basic research to today’s application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in all aspects. It is thus clear that how important the investment in basic research and interdisciplinary integration are.”

“Patient” capital replaces “quick money” and “hot money”

People jump into a hot industry, crank out a gimmicky startup program, and then quickly get an investment of millions of yuan from investors who look for “quick money” and arbitrage, However, a few months later, the founder declares the program a failure and walks away - such things abound in venture capital investment circle. In the future, more and more “patient” capital will fight against such bad atmosphere.

At the theme forum for future industry investment yesterday, “ZGC innovation FOF” valued at more than 30 billion yuan was officially announced. The FOF, consisting of “Zhongguancun innovation development fund” valued at 20 billion yuan and “Zhongguancun international innovation fund” valued at 2 billion dollars, was jointly set up by industry capital, financial capital and technology capital at home and abroad under the leadership of Zhongguancun Capital, the investment platform under ZGC Group.

In complete contrast to making “hot money” and “quick money”, the FOF, to provide innovators and entrepreneurs with continuous support of “patient” capital, will create a fund ecosystem which provides continued assistance from angels, venture capitals to mergers and acquisitions around transformation of major scientific and technological achievements, high-tech industry incubation, establishment of science and technology service platform and construction of innovative platform, etc. and boost enterprises in Zhongguancun to develop overseas business and achieve cross-border mergers and acquisitions and overseas listing.

“If you are impatient, don’t make VC (venture investment). The values of just making ‘quick money’ may cost you everything. Some young investors may think that values don’t ring true, but in fact, values are closely related to investment returns.” Zhang Zhen, founding partner of Gaorong Capital, reminded at the forum, giving a wake-up call to investors and entrepreneurs who still indulged in the idea of making “quick money”.

“The first 25 enterprises on the science and technology innovation board, spent 11.8 years in average from registering companies to getting on the board, the longest is 19 years. If you’re impatient and absent when the enterprise needs you most, how can the enterprise cross over the valley of death?” Liu Feng, President of Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Investment Management Co. Ltd., intuitively expounded the necessity of “patient” capital with figures.

Intellectual property enables high-quality development

“Currently, innovation and intellectual property have played a critical role in the development of each and every country,” said Wang Binying, Deputy Director-General of World Intellectual Property Organization, at the opening ceremony of ZGC Forum.

New technology brings unprecedented changes to people. Why does modern technology develop so fast? Will this trend continue? Some problems may not be answered today, but one thing is very clear that the prosperity of scientific and technological innovation is based on the active encouragement to scientists, engineers and scientific researchers. The intellectual property system is one of the important incentives. “Such a system constantly urged them to work hard and make constant research,” thought Wang Binying.

China has made brilliant achievements all over the world in scientific and technological innovation. A very intuitive reflection is that China has become the world’s largest filer of patents for invention. In 2018, China leads the world in the number of patent filings, trademarks and industrial design applications. Through the Patent Cooperation Treaty of Intellectual Property Organization, China has applied 53,345 patents, becoming the world’s second largest filer of patents.

“This data tells us that China’s economy has been better integrated into global value chains,” said Wang Binying. In the 2019 global innovation index newly released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China ranks 14th in the world for the first time and becomes the only middle-income economy among the top 15, earning itself a place among the leading innovative countries.