China’s 15th five-year plan sets out an ambitious push to become a global leader in Artificial Intelligence, quantum technology and other advanced fields, while reinforcing a broader drive for scientific self-reliance. The plan was passed by the top legislature in Beijing on Thursday and published on Friday. It will run from 2026 to 2030 and serves as China’s overarching blueprint. Researchers cited in the report described a more confident tone than in earlier planning cycles, with policymakers now projecting that China can move beyond catching up and become a true leader in strategic technologies.
The government has promised to boost its research and development (R&D) expenditure over the next five years. And the country’s science budget is also expected to increase to 426 billion yuan (US$62 billion) this year, a rise of 10% from 2025. Science is being treated as a top-level national priority alongside defence, economic growth and international influence. The plan also sharpens China’s focus on overcoming technological bottlenecks, especially in areas where dependence on foreign suppliers remains a vulnerability, such as advanced semiconductor chips.
The blueprint calls for breakthroughs along the whole chain of development in six domains: integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, high-end instruments, basic software, advanced materials and biomanufacturing. The aim is to strengthen domestic capabilities across every layer of those industries. Although China has pursued this goal for years, the latest plan places greater urgency on it amid intensifying China-US competition over technological supremacy. The document refers to ‘extraordinary measures’ to advance these goals, though it does not spell them out in detail. Possible measures could include policies such as the ‘K visa’, which was introduced last year to attract foreign scientists.
Artificial Intelligence is given a central role in the strategy through the national Artificial Intelligence plus campaign announced last year. The plan envisions applying Artificial Intelligence across society, from industrial development to social governance, while treating it as a strategic national resource that requires secure supply chains in chips, software and talent training. In early 2025, Chinese tech start-up firm DeepSeek shocked the world by releasing two large language models (LLMs) that rivalled the performance of the dominant tools developed by US tech giants but that were built at a fraction of the cost and computing power needed to train their US counterparts. That progress is seen as reinforcing China’s confidence not only in building Artificial Intelligence systems, but also in trying to shape global rules on Artificial Intelligence governance and regulation.
