The city of Ordos – located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – on Feb 21 released a list of its top 50 technology enterprises for 2021.

The list was announced by the Ordos municipal government at the Ordos Industry and Private Economy High-quality Development Conference.

Last year, the total R&D investment of enterprises above a designated size in Ordos – those with annual revenue of 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) – reached 5.87 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 75.7 percent, ranking it first among the cities and leagues in Inner Mongolia.

All the top 50 sci-tech innovation enterprises on the Ordos list are understood to have made relatively heavy investments in R&D over the past three years.

They include 16 which each spent over 100 million yuan on R&D last year, 12 which invested 50-100 million yuan, 19 enterprises that spent 10-50 million yuan and three companies that outlaid less than 10 million yuan.

All businesses on the list are understood to have patented results, while more than 80 percent of them have R&D institutions or platforms above the autonomous regional level.

Among them, 44 enterprises have more than 10 patents, accounting for 88 percent of the total, and six enterprises currently have less than 10 patents.

Additionally, two enterprises on the list belong to the category of national science and technology small and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs and 43 are national high-tech enterprises.