The Department of Science and Technology of East China's Anhui province recently announced its list of new high-level R&D institutions, with five out of the 11 located in Hefei, the provincial capital.

Among them, the Hefei Innovation Institute – jointly established by the Hefei local government and the Hefei Institute of Physical Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences – is widely said to have become a leader in the field of innovation.

In recent years, it has focused on the digital economy and the life and health industries. In so doing, it's built a technology resource library that covers multiple fields such as blockchain, cloud computing, the internet of things and visual perception.

"In the past two years, the R&D expenditure of the Hefei Innovation Institute has exceeded 10 million yuan ($1.36 million) each year and has been continuously increasing," said Yu Wei, the director of platform construction at the institute.

The increased investment in research and development also yielded many technological achievements in various industries, Yu added.

An aerial view of the Institute of Advanced Technology at the University of Science and Technology of China. [Photo/gxq.hefei.gov.cn]

Hefei encourages the use of seed funds, angel investment funds, entrepreneurial investment guidance funds and industrial investment guidance funds to support the transfer of sci-tech achievements by new R&D institutions and their incubated enterprises through equity investment.

To date, Hefei's new R&D institutions have incubated more than 1,300 high-tech enterprises, attracting over 4,300 researchers from home and abroad.