Academy reveals top 10 engineering achievements

The Chinese Academy of Engineering has named the top 10 cutting-edge engineering breakthroughs with global significance in the past five years, including China's space station, the Harmony operating system developed by Chinese technology giant Huawei and ChatGPT.

The list, released on Wednesday, was compiled from nominations gathered around the world and was finalized through expert recommendations, public surveys and committee reviews.

The academy said the list primarily focused on major innovative outcomes in engineering and technology from 2018 to 2022 that were collaboratively or independently completed, practically validated and have created global significance. These include major engineering projects, key technological equipment and original innovations in engineering and technology.

China contributed three innovations to the list: the Tiangong space station, the Baihetan Hydropower Station along the Jinsha River in Southwest China and Huawei's Harmony operating system.

The academy said the Chinese space station is poised to provide broader prospects and opportunities for human space exploration and development.

It described the Harmony operating system, introduced by Huawei in 2019, as a solution to interconnectedness among people, devices and scenes, representing a technological innovation for the smart era across various scenarios.

The United States contributed four innovations on the list: ChatGPT, the Frontier supercomputer system, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, and a pair of robots from Boston Dynamics — the four-legged Spot and the new-generation Atlas.

ChatGPT, launched by US company OpenAI, became one of the most successful products in gaining artificial intelligence capabilities through natural language interaction, providing a paradigm for achieving general artificial intelligence for humanity, the academy said in a news release.

It said that as the world's first computer to break the exascale barrier, allowing it to perform more than 1 quintillion (1 followed by 18 zeros) computations a second, the Frontier supercomputer is expected to provide more powerful computing capacity to address the world's most challenging scientific issues, such as precise climate predictions, nuclear fusion simulations and the development of new materials and drugs.

The three other advanced technological breakthroughs on the list were the RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine, lithium-ion power batteries and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The academy said the successful launch of the malaria vaccine, whose widespread use among children in sub-Saharan Africa was recommended by the World Health Organization in 2021, is a significant milestone in the history of human efforts against malaria.

It said that as a new energy storage technology, lithium-ion power batteries have found extensive applications in electric vehicles, light electric vehicles, electric tools, aerospace and other fields, while unmanned aerial vehicles have exhibited significant applications in various military and civilian fields.

In the academy's eyes, the 10 developments represent the most advanced technological levels or major original breakthroughs in one or multiple engineering and technology fields, capable of guiding the direction of future technological advancements.

They also often involve numerous related industries and possess significant value in terms of driving industrial and economic growth.

Technologies such as lithium-ion power batteries, unmanned aerial vehicles and robots have vast application scenarios, displaying explosive and rapid growth in recent years and generating substantial economic and social benefits, the academy said.