Photo taken on May 14, 2018 shows Zhongguancun’s symbolic sculpture. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In celebration of its 40 years of pioneering development, Zhongguancun Science Park—China's Silicon Valley—organized a seminar in Beijing's Haidian district, on May 14.

Attending were government officials, industry leaders and renowned experts. They exchanged ideas on previous achievements, current circumstances and future challenges.

Zhongguancun has always been a leader in the country's reform and open-up strategy, Xu Nanping, vice-minister of science and technology, said during the discussion.

In 1978, the wave of reform and opening-up gave birth to the "Zhongguancun Electronics Street" where passionate entrepreneurs put their heads together, brainstorming with each other to chase their dreams.

A decade later, the State Council officially established the Beijing New Technology Industrial Development Trial Zone, predecessor of the Zhongguancun Science Park.

Now, the pilot zone is marching forward with a development formation consisting of 16 sub-parks and some 20,000 high-tech companies, including computer maker Lenovo, search giant Baidu, e-commerce retailer JD and chip unicorn Cambricon.

The science park has also been a source of China's innovative elements. Many core technologies like Sugon supercomputers, AI chips and grapheme equipment were bred in Zhongguancun's laboratories.

With an overall profit of 467 billion yuan ($73.31billion) and a value-added output of 735 billion yuan in 2017, Zhongguancun enterprises reached a total income of up to 5.3 trillion yuan, which contributed 34 percent of Beijing's economic growth.

In addition, the trial zone has created an ideal ecosystem for startups from home and abroad. Zhongguancun has incubated some 30,000 tech startups, 70 of which are considered Chinese unicorns.

Beijing's deputy mayor Yin Hejun stressed that, in the future, Zhongguancun should formulate innovation-oriented policies and target ground-breaking technologies, incubate creativity-driven startups and intensify international cooperation.