China's top science awards 2025: What lithium batteries and radar technology teach us about foundational research

On July 8, 2026, China held its triennial National Science and Technology Awards ceremony in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Two scientists received the nation's highest honor: Chen Liquan, the 86-year-old founder of China's lithium battery industry, and Ben De, a pioneer in radar and electronic warfare systems. The awards, covering 258 projects and 11 scientists across all categories, tell a deeper story about how foundational research turns into industries — and why that timeline is measured in decades, not quarters.

Knowledge point: From lab curiosity to global industry

Chen Liquan began researching solid-state ionics — the study of how ions move through solids — in the 1970s, at a time when lithium batteries were a laboratory curiosity. His work on lithium-ion conductors laid the groundwork for what became a trillion-dollar global industry powering everything from smartphones to electric vehicles. Today, China produces over 70% of the world's lithium-ion batteries. The key insight: the foundational science that enabled a global energy transition was developed decades before the market existed. This is a recurring pattern in technology history — the transistor (1947), the internet protocol (1974), CRISPR gene editing (1993) — all began as curiosity-driven research with no obvious commercial application.

Radar, electronics, and national capability

Ben De's career at the China Electronics Technology Group focused on radar systems — the technology that allows aircraft, ships, and ground stations to detect objects at long range using radio waves. Modern phased-array radar, which can track hundreds of targets simultaneously without physically moving the antenna, depends on advanced signal processing and semiconductor materials. Ben's work spanned decades of evolving electronic warfare technology, from mechanical scanning to digital beamforming. The knowledge lesson: defense electronics research creates spillover benefits in civilian communications, weather monitoring, and air traffic control — sectors that depend on the same underlying signal-processing mathematics.

Why national science awards matter

China's State Science and Technology Prizes, established in 2000, are modeled on Nobel-style recognition but with a broader scope: they reward not just discovery but also technological application and industrialization. The 2025 batch awarded 258 projects — 51 natural science prizes (basic research), 58 technology invention prizes (applied research), and 149 science and technology progress prizes (commercial deployment). This three-tier structure explicitly links laboratory discovery to factory-floor implementation, reflecting a national innovation policy that treats the entire chain as one system.