A TOTAL of 16 projects hosted by or in cooperation with 19 Shenzhen enterprises, research institutes and universities won prizes of the 2018 State Preeminent Science and Technology Awards, China’s top science award, at an award ceremony in Beijing on Tuesday.

The projects covered three categories, including one project in natural sciences, three technological inventions and 13 concerning scientific progress.

A research and application project for a next-generation base station solution by Huawei Technologies won the first prize for scientific advancement. It is the second time that the Shenzhen-based telecom giant has won the title in 17 years and the 12th straight year the Shenzhen company has won State awards for science and technology advancement.

Huawei spent 2 billion yuan (US$294 million) on research for the four-year project.

The other winning projects cover the electronic information, new materials and civil engineering fields.

Nearly 60 percent of Shenzhen’s winning projects came from the electronic information industry, indicating the city’s prominent advantages in developing high technologies. Among the projects, 13 were hosted by or in partnership with Shenzhen enterprises, accounting for 92.9 percent of the total. Those enterprises include Huawei, Tencent, ZTE, BYD and HiSilicon, as well as some other newly emerging enterprises in the electronics and telecommunications industries.

According to Shenzhen’s science, technology and innovation commission, the city boasted 14,000 high-tech enterprises by the end of 2018. Since 2010, 115 projects from Shenzhen have won national awards in different categories.

Initiated in 2000, the State Preeminent Science and Technology Awards of China is the country’s highest scientific award. With the award ceremony held in January each year, it is also referred to as China’s Nobel Prize.

Over the past 40 years, China has granted more than 100,000 national science awards, covering achievements in areas such as high-temperature super conducting material, manned space flight, Qinghai-Tibet Railway, supercomputers and hybrid rice, according to a Xinhua report.

China’s R&D investment in 2016 exceeded the EU and was second only to the United States, accounting for 21 percent of global R&D investment.

The country has the world’s largest number of R&D personnel and ranks second in the world for the number of scientific papers published in international journals. Science and technology contribute 55.3 percent of economic growth in China.

(Han Ximin)