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The development of high-end new materials is a key point for promoting the transformation and upgrading of the chemical industry. At present, the global chemical new materials industry is presenting a favorable situation of rapid industrial development, prominent agglomeration effect and accelerated technological iteration. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, China's innovation in new chemical materials will enter a brand-new stage of "leading" and "high-end", developing towards high performance, green and intelligent directions. Among them, artificial intelligence (AI) is the "new key" to promoting industrial transformation. This information was learned by the reporter at the parallel forum of the 2025 Zhongguancun Forum - the "Enterprise Discovery and Invention Forum" held on March 29th.

The chemical new materials industry is developing rapidly

Zhao Dong, director and general manager of Sinopec Group Co., LTD., pointed out that the current global chemical new materials field is characterized by rapid industrial development, prominent agglomeration effects, and accelerated technological iteration.

First, the explosive growth in demand and investment have driven the industry onto a fast track of development. In recent years, the global market for new chemical materials has maintained a growth trend, presenting overall characteristics such as high-tech leadership, new product iteration, industrial expansion, and broadened demand.

Second, strategic cooperation and resource integration promote the agglomeration and scale development of industries. Globally, forming strategic partnerships, deeply engaging in investment cooperation, reorganization and mergers and acquisitions, and striving to build an industrial ecosystem have become the strategic choices for an increasing number of producers to consolidate their own advantages. Domestically, China's new materials industry has shown a clear trend of agglomeration development, forming three comprehensive new materials industry clusters in the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

Third, the technological revolution and industrial transformation have driven the emergence and accelerated iteration of clusters of new chemical materials technologies. At present, the field of new chemical materials technology presents a situation where Europe and America have long been leading while China is developing rapidly. Among them, the United States leads in high-performance separation membrane materials, special engineering plastics and other fields, Europe is at the leading level in special rubber, high-end polyolefins and other fields, Japan holds an advantageous position in high-performance fibers, electronic information materials and other fields, and South Korea has developed maturely in display materials, storage materials and other fields. In recent years, China's technological innovation capabilities in new chemical materials have been continuously enhanced, achieving technological breakthroughs and industrial transformation in high-end polyolefins, special rubber, high-performance fibers and other fields.

Enter the leading and high-end stage

Zhao Dong predicted that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, China's innovation in new chemical materials will enter a brand-new stage of "leading" and "venturing into the high-end", moving towards high performance, greenness and intelligence.

The first is to develop high-performance materials to meet the needs of strategic emerging industries. On the one hand, efforts should be made to vigorously promote the high performance of basic materials. By means of efficient catalytic materials, new polymerization processes and functional improvements, we can drive the high-end development of general materials such as polyethylene, polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride, and increase the added value of products. On the other hand, efforts should be made to vigorously develop high-performance materials represented by high-end polyolefins, various synthetic rubbers, and functional membrane materials to meet the development needs of emerging fields such as aerospace and electronic information.

Second, develop green production technologies to help achieve the "dual carbon" goals. The "green content" of new chemical materials is equivalent to the "gold content". On the one hand, efforts should be made from the supply side to enhance the coupling of green hydrogen and green electricity in the production process of chemical materials. Through technological innovations such as process reengineering, the process should be made low-carbon and green. On the other hand, efforts should be made to break through the problems from the recycling end, develop technologies such as the green and resourceful utilization of waste polymer materials, and promote the development of a circular economy.

The third is to develop intelligent material technology to achieve multi-functional integration and disruptive applications. Intelligent materials refer to those that can respond to changes in the external environment. Currently, they have been applied in the fields of adaptive control of spacecraft, intelligent biological and medical equipment. For instance, the material for repairing car bumpers is made by adding silicon capsules containing reversible cross-linking bonds to the existing polyurethane material. Once the silicon capsules are cracked, they will repair themselves, restoring the bumper to its original state.

AI is the "new key" to industrial transformation

Gou Ping, a member of the Party Committee and deputy director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, pointed out that "AI for Science" has become the "new key" to solving scientific problems. Enterprises need to actively embrace "scientific intelligence and machine conjecture", significantly shorten the R&D cycle, reduce R&D costs, and promote a qualitative change in R&D efficiency.

The Bohr Research Space Station is a typical case of "AI for Science". Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, director of the International Center for Machine Learning at Peking University, and chairperson of the Academic Committee of the Beijing Institute of Scientific Intelligence, E Weinan, took the Bohr Research Space Station as an example to introduce how AI empowers the development of the new materials industry.

According to E Weinan, the Bohr Research Space Station is an AI research platform integrating literature reading, AI4S computing platform and super experimental platform, covering the entire process of "reading literature - doing calculations - conducting experiments - multi-disciplinary collaboration", which can enable scientists to break away from the research method of relying on trial and error to accumulate experience. At present, this platform has been applied in the field of materials. For instance, Sinopec Research Institute of Petroleum Processing Co., Ltd. built a highly accurate pre-trained model based on the AI4S base model Uni-Mol in the coolant scenario, and developed high-performance and environmentally friendly coolant in less than a year. The team from Xiamen University has rapidly developed an electrolyte material with excellent comprehensive performance through Uni-Mol. They have developed an electrolyte material that meets multiple indicators such as conductivity and stability in just six iterations.