At the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (TIBCAS), research fellow Qiao Jing was wholly immersed in her routine experimental procedure. After she added iodine solution to a test tube, she was surprised.
The reagent reacted, producing a faint yet unmistakable blue hue. “Although the blue is very faint, it indicates that starch has formed!” Qiao exclaimed. The memory of that moment in 2018 remains vivid and exciting for her even now, as she recounted it during an interview with newspaper People’s Daily.
The discovery sparked much excitement among the team, particularly for Cai Tao, the project manager of the artificial starch synthesis project at TIBCAS. Initially skeptical, he quickly left a meeting to return to the lab, eager to design a validation experiment. The next day, the “starch blue” reappeared, confirming their breakthrough.
In September 2021, prestigious academic journal Science published the institute’s landmark achievement: the world’s first successful synthesis of starch directly from carbon dioxide.Scientists hail this research as a potentially revolutionary advancement for future agricultural production and bio-manufacturing.
Starch is a primary carbohydrate that serves as a major energy source for humans and animals. The successful synthesis of starch directly from carbon dioxide is important because it can create a sustainable way to produce food and materials, reducing the reliance on land and resources while helping to combat climate change.
Such scientific breakthroughs have become increasingly common in China in recent years, echoing a broader trend of innovation and technological advancement.
This momentum is confirmed by global innovation rankings. In 2024, China moved up to 11th place in the Global Innovation Index, up from 29th place out of 143 economies surveyed in 2015, demonstrating its position as one of the economies with the most prominent innovation growth over the past decade.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2012, China, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, has vigorously pursued an innovation-driven development strategy.
The country has set an ambitious goal of becoming an innovative nation and a leading science and technology power by 2035. By continuously deepening reforms within the science and technology system and fully unleashing the initiative and creativity of its researchers, China has made substantial progress in achieving self-reliance in science and technology. Consequently, the country’s science and technology sector has achieved historic milestones and undergone transformative changes.
This was recently exemplified by DeepSeek-R1, an artificial intelligence model developed by the Chinese company DeepSeek. It has surprised the world with its impressive results, which are comparable to those of the U.S.-based OpenAI model, but at a fraction of the cost.
Inspiration and perspiration
The artificial starch synthesis project began with a spark of inspiration on a high-speed train. During a business trip back to Tianjin Municipality, Ma Yanhe, then Director of TIBCAS, pondered a pressing question: “In the face of global challenges like climate change, food security and limited energy resources, how can we transform carbon dioxide into valuable materials that benefit humanity?” This thought sparked the initiative, which was formally launched in 2015 after extensive research and evaluation at the institute.
When Cai Tao was entrusted with this ambitious project, he felt a mix of excitement and apprehension. Although artificial starch synthesis was theoretically possible, no one had ever successfully achieved it. “We wanted to take on a challenge that others had not been able to accomplish,” he told People’s Daily.
The goal of artificial starch synthesis is to find a more efficient “shortcut” for producing starch. In nature, starch synthesis involves a complex series of about 60 metabolic reactions in crops. To enable industrial-scale production, Cai and his team knew they needed to simplify this process considerably. They meticulously screened over 6,000 biochemical reactions to identify the most efficient pathway for artificial starch synthesis. Theoretically, Cai noted, carbon dioxide can be converted into starch through just nine reactions. “The fewer the steps, the fewer the potential complications,” he emphasized.
The entire experiment took three years, resulting in a mountain of experimental data that stood nearly half a person tall.
One major challenge was the management of enzymes. Most reactions within the starch synthesis process rely on enzymatic activity. Natural reaction pathways have evolved over long periods of natural selection, resulting in enzymes that are well-adapted and synergistic. However, the artificially designed pathway presents a different scenario.
“The same enzyme can often catalyze multiple reactions, potentially leading to undesirable side effects. Additionally, multiple enzymes might compete for a single substrate (the material or substance upon which an enzyme acts), or some enzymes might generate multiple products.” To resolve these problems, Cai collaborated with the institute’s enzyme research team to modify existing enzymes or design new ones tailored specifically to the needs of artificial starch synthesis.
In 2021, the team developed an 11-step artificial starch synthesis pathway. This process begins with the reduction of carbon dioxide to methanol using an organic catalyst. Next, engineered enzymes convert the methanol into sugar units, which are then assembled into polymeric starch. This pathway not only produced starch but also achieved an 8.5-fold increase in starch synthesis rate compared to naturally growing maize.
Following their breakthrough in 2021, the team has continued to refine their artificial starch synthesis technology, consistently increasing the yield of starch production.
Cai stated that their next priority is to accelerate the transition of these scientific findings from the laboratory to industrial applications, ensuring that the technology benefits society. The industrialized application of this technology can conserve land and freshwater resources, while reducing the dependence on environmentally harmful pesticides and fertilizers.
Overcoming barriers
Another example of transformative innovation is the work of scientists at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) in Hefei, Anhui Province. They are spearheading the development of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), popularly known as China’s “artificial sun.” EAST is central to China’s pursuit of controlled nuclear fusion, a potential source of limitless, clean energy.
Nuclear fusion reactors are nicknamed “artificial suns” because they generate energy in a similar way to the sun—by fusing two light atoms into a single heavy atom via heat and pressure.
Gong Xianzhu, head of the EAST Physics and Experimental Operations at ASIPP, explained to China Central Television (CCTV) in December 2024: “Nuclear fusion has already been achieved, notably in the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. However, achieving controlled nuclear fusion demands exceptionally challenging conditions—extremely high temperatures, extremely high densities and the ability to sustain these conditions for extended periods.”
However, artificially recreating the extreme pressure of over 250 billion atmospheres found at the sun’s core is a formidable task.
“Therefore, to initiate nuclear fusion, we must create an even more extreme high-temperature environment than that of the sun. Only by heating matter to over 100 million degrees Celsius, transforming it into a high-temperature plasma state, can nuclear fusion occur, releasing sunlight and heat,” Gong said.
Furthermore, the nuclear fusion reaction must be contained within controllable limits.
If uncontrolled, it would resemble a hydrogen bomb explosion, making the energy released difficult to harness for practical use. The primary method for achieving controllable nuclear fusion is magnetic confinement, which is accomplished by generating strong toroidal (doughnut-shaped) magnetic fields using external field coils through which large currents flow.
However, maintaining a stable magnetic field to confine the incredibly hot plasma—one of the four fundamental states of matter, alongside gases, liquids and solids—is a major hurdle. To overcome this, EAST utilizes powerful superconducting magnets within a vacuum chamber.
“Over the past decade or so, our fusion research has been like walking on thin ice, encountering all sorts of engineering and physics problems every day,” Song Yuntao, Vice President of ASIPP, told CCTV.
“For instance, 18 years ago, when we needed to build the superconducting tokamak device, we needed superconducting materials. Western countries initially offered to provide us with these materials, but then they reneged on the offer,” Song recounted.
Faced with this obstacle, the team turned to independent innovation. They collaborated with the industrial sector, working together to overcome the technological challenges associated with superconducting materials. China’s superconducting materials and technology are now world-leading, and all the superconducting materials used in the “artificial sun” are domestically produced.
“Throughout the process of creating the ‘artificial sun,’ we encounter and solve problems every day. The research team has conducted 150,000 experiments, constantly exploring and figuring things out through these tests.”
Since achieving its first plasma discharge in 2006, EAST has made several world records for sustained plasma confinement. Its latest accomplishment, a 1,066-second continuous high-confinement plasma pulse completed on January 20, set a new world record.
However, magnetic confinement reactors like EAST have never achieved ignition, which is the point at which nuclear fusion creates its own energy and sustains its own reaction, but the new record is a step toward maintaining prolonged, confined plasma loops that future reactors will need to generate electricity.
“A fusion device must achieve stable operation at high efficiency for thousands of seconds to enable the self-sustaining circulation of plasma, which is critical for the continuous power generation of future fusion plants,” Song said.
The data gathered by EAST will support the development of other reactors, both in China and internationally.
The ITER reactor, which is being built in the south of France, contains the world’s most powerful magnet and will fire up in 2039 at the earliest. ITER will be an experimental tool designed to create sustained fusion for research purposes, but could pave the way for fusion power plants.
“We hope to expand international collaboration via EAST and bring fusion energy into practical use for humanity,” Song said. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
