Frontier fields such as life sciences, artificial intelligence, quantum science, astronomy and energy were celebrated Thursday when the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) released the country’s top 10 science advances in 2023.

The annual list highlighted the use of AI models for enhanced precision in forecasting weather.

Huawei’s Pangu model demonstrated high precision compared to traditional numerical prediction methods for forecasts.

This could take anywhere from an hour to a week, and its prediction speed is 10,000 times faster.

Also among the advances was the precise energy spectrum for the highest-energy gamma-ray radiation from the brightest gamma-ray burst observed to date.

It was captured by China’s Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO), a high-altitude cosmic ray observatory.

In life science, the list included how certain elements with viral origins in our genomes became awakened and contributed to the ageing process.

How DNA’s unzipping machine worked, how light suppressed blood sugar metabolism, and the precise integration of large DNA sequences in plant genomes.

This was the discovery of a “tangible’’ biological clock in the brain and the key gene in a crop that might substantially improve yields from alkaline soil.

The advances also included extending the quantum information’s storage time and the chemical reaction processes in lithium-sulfur batteries.

The NSFC is a major funding source in China for basic research and frontier exploration. More than 2,100 experts, including over 430 Chinese academicians, voted on the results.

About 45 per cent of researchers attached to the studies were less than 45 years old, revealing that young scientists had become a driving force in China’s basic research, according to the NSFC.

Some achievements were contributed by enterprises, including Huawei and Qi-Biodesign Biotechnology, reflecting the increasingly important role that firms played in innovation.

In an interview with Xinhua, the NSFC announced new measures to extend funding for outstanding undergraduates to conduct pilot project basic research.

It should offer long-term funding for excellent researchers with a maximum of nearly $4.17 million over 15 years.

The foundation also vowed to establish a global fund for science projects between Chinese and overseas scientists.

It also supported overseas scientists to work in China on a long-term basis in a bid to build a platform for international cooperation in basic research. 

(Xinhua/NAN)