In recent years, Beijing has achieved many "firsts" in China's scientific and technological fields. They include the first experimental observation of the quantum anomalous Hall effect, the first observation of three-component fermions, and the first Chinese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, Tu Youyou.

Xu Qiang, director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, said that the city has accumulated a large number of important scientific and technological achievements in the past 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. As the national science and technology innovation center, Beijing has made significant contributions to the construction of an innovative and technologically advanced China.

Beijing built China's first particle accelerator - Beijing Electron-Positron Collider (BEPC). It has also built China's first national demonstration tech hub featuring indigenous innovation - Zhongguancun Science Park - which then witnessed the birth of China's first private technology company, first internet company, and first venture capital company. 

Among the Chinese mainland's world-leading technological achievements, Beijing claims 55.7%, across fields of computer science, telecommunication, nanotechnology, electronics, artificial intelligence, and astronautics. 

Nearly half of the members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering are currently working in Beijing. 

The city also has 19 major national science and technology infrastructure facilities in operation, under construction, or in preparation, accounting for about one third of the country's total. Beijing is participating in 16 key national science and technology projects, leading more than one third of the national key R&D tasks, and has become a science and technology power in the areas of carbon-based integrated circuits and 5G, stem cell and regenerative medicine research, artificial intelligence, cutting-edge new materials, etc. 

Last year, 69 achievements from Beijing won the State Science and Technology Prizes, accounting for 30.8% of the total number. For three consecutive years, the first prize of the State Natural Science Award went to Beijing researchers.

Beijing is also on top of many city rankings. It was ranked first in the 2018 "Capital Science and Technology Innovation Development Report." CB Insights, a well-known U.S. market research company, listed Beijing as one of the 10 rising global tech hubs. The city also topped among 500 cities of the world in the Nature Index Science Cities for 2017 and 2018. 

With Zhongguancun as a reform pilot zone, Beijing has issued a series of policies concerning research project and fund management, achievements transformation and industrialization, financial services, performance evaluation, talent introduction and opening-up and innovation, and the positive results it gained have further encouraged reform in other cities of China. 

In 2018, the proportion of Beijing's total R&D fund in its regional GDP ranked the first in the Chinese mainland. The number of patents per 10,000 people in Beijing was 111.2, the most in the mainland.

In the past five years, the numbers of national high-tech enterprises, national patents granted, and international patent applications in Beijing have all doubled from those of 2013.