A hydrogen-powered ski-waxing truck made in Shandong province will serve athletes during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

East China's Shandong province will strive to become strong in science and education by 2025, build itself into a high-level innovative province, and form scientific and technological innovation centers with domestic influence, said local authorities.

Tang Bo, director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Science and Technology, said the province has taken specific measures to achieve this goal during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

Shandong will launch a ten-year action plan for basic research focusing on frontier basic research fields such as brain science and brain-like research, catalytic science, synthetic biology, and quantum communication.

Shandong will strive to make breakthroughs in key and core technologies covering areas such as new-generation information technology, advanced manufacturing, modern transportation and new materials.

The province, which is home to the first scientific and technological demonstration project for hydrogen energy in China, will beef up efforts to produce, store, transport and use the clean energy resource during this period.

In recent years, Shandong has witnessed rapid progress in the development of science and technology. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), Shandong's investment in basic research continued to increase, with the funding for basic research nearly doubling.

In 2020, the number of sci-tech small and medium-size enterprises in Shandong reached 18,200, while the number of high-tech enterprises exceeded 14,600, 3.75 times than that of 2015.