Major Issue and Difficulty Release for the 25th Annual Meeting of the China Association for Science and Technology

Since 2018, the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) has extensively mobilized scientific and technological workers, organized national societies and consortiums of societies, as well as enterprise associations to continuously carry out collection activities for major scientific problems, engineering and technical difficulties, and industrial technical issues. The report of the 20th CPC National Congress proposed "to accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, to focus on national strategic needs, to pool strength for original and leading scientific and technological breakthroughs, and to resolutely win the tough battle for key core technologies." This year, President Wan Gang personally served as the director of the final selection committee for major issues and difficulties, emphasizing the need to accurately identify the frontier, strategic, innovative, and leading nature of the problems, to grasp the trends of scientific and technological development and the direction of disciplinary frontiers, and to firmly steer the course for scientific and technological workers to make contributions to the country and the people. After rigorous scrutiny by over a hundred academicians and experts, CAST officially released the major scientific problems, engineering and technical difficulties, and technical industrial issues for 2023.

Major scientific problems

1. How to achieve energy-efficient AI (or Green AI)?

2. How to maneuver the flight of spacecraft in the upper atmosphere?

3. Is the new method of coincidence measurement able to search for the magnetic monopole and axion dark matter?

4. How Do Nonlinear Effects Scale? 

5. What are basic scientific problems influencing the development of high performance fiber and composite materials?

6. How do crops adapt to soil conditions under global climate change？

7. How did modern terrestrial ecosystems originate?

8. What are the trigger and delay mechanisms of reproductive aging?

9. How to realize steady-state operation of burning plasma in a controlled fusion reactor?

10. How to explore the coupling mechanism and energy distribution characteristics of a higher speed wheel/rail system？

Engineering and technical difficulties

1. How to achieve real-time and real-space imaging of microscopic dynamics on the intrinsic scale of atoms and electrons?

2. How to breakthrough the engineering preparation technology and equipment needs for processing of high purity rare earth materials？

3. What are the long-duration energy storage methods suitable for new-type power systems?

4. How to realize green, high quality and high yield "unmanned" cultivation of field crops?

5. How to break through the technical problem of long-term risk assessment and property resistance of ultra-high and wide station embankments given the multiple hazard facing major national railways in special and complex mountains?

6. How to break through clean and high-value utilization of new energy waste?

7. How to deal with challenges in key technologies of low-platinum, low cost automotive PEMFC stacks？

8. How to achieve the crewed round-trip Mars mission using space Nuclear Power?

9. How to apply Brain-Computer Interface technology to clinical medicine?

Technical industrial issues

1. How to break through the application of carbon fiber composites in China's future ultra-high-speed trains？

2. How to leverage the Chinese ICT advantages to achieve rapid breakthroughs in the Chiplet technology industry?

3. How to develop the high-end technology of petroleum-based carbon materials？

4. How to achieve space-borne lightweight array deployable antennae by flexible membrane technology？

5. How to realize the wide application of Germ Stem Cell Transplantation technology in the unisexual germplasm creation of cultured fish?

6. How to achieve joint optimization on flood control level for cascade reservoirs?

7. How to make high value use of chemical waste salt contaminated by organic pollutants to promote the development of the chemical industry？

8. How to construct 10GW-level renewable energy bases and achieve safe and stable transmission in desert/Gobi areas ?

9. How to develop self-controllable SoC for high performance and low cost industrial upgrading?

10. How to achieve intelligent, safe and efficient mining in rockburst coal seams?