Jingcai Observation·Youth Chapter丨Young science and technology creators use hard work to redefine "innovation"

Have you ever seen a robot pouring water? In a robot company in Hefei, 27-year-old Han Jiahe is repeatedly debugging a robotic arm: grabbing a water cup, aligning it with the mouth of the cup, and pouring water. If the movement is a little less smooth, he adjusts it again; he grabs it, aims it, and pours it. If it still shakes slightly, he continues to optimize. It is impossible to count how many times a glass of water has been poured. Behind him is a group of "post-00s" members, with the average age of the entire team being twenty-six years old.

Some people may ask, what is the praise of pouring a glass of water? Looking back five years ago, the robot was still clumsy, but now it can calmly and steadily hold pots and serve tea to humans. What has been accumulated during this period is the persistence and hard work of this group of young people day after day.

Anhui’s innovation landscape goes far beyond Hefei’s robots. In Dashu Town, Chuzhou, a team concentrates on developing high-end protective gloves - this seemingly ordinary product has been monopolized by foreign countries for a long time. If they do not make independent breakthroughs, they can only be imported at high prices. A group of young people with an average age of less than 35 years old finally broke down the barriers after three years of hard work, and the products are now exported overseas in batches. Liu Gaofeng of Suzhou took a different approach and moved his company from Hangzhou to the Suzhou High-tech Zone because this is where the unmanned express delivery vehicle he developed can really run on the streets. Today, those courier trucks without cabs on the streets of Suzhou are his works.

Looking closely at these stories, it is not difficult to find a common core: innovation is not a grand slogan, but a specific person who is obsessed with specific things. This week, the online themed publicity campaign "Seeing China in the Beginning of the Year·Riding Jianghuai" is underway. From Hefei to Chuzhou, from Fuyang to Suzhou, what we are paying attention to all the way is these real individuals - not the blueprints in PPT or exhibition halls, but the living and tangible "innovators". Anhui Province’s “15th Five-Year Plan” vigorously supports youth entrepreneurship. HKUST Silicon Valley has gathered more than 80,000 innovative and entrepreneurial talents, the vast majority of whom are under the age of 30; the province supports more than 10,000 people to start entrepreneurship every year. These numbers sound calm, but behind every "one" is a young man who is staring at the robotic arm and refusing to let go.

Looking across the country, this change is unfolding at an unprecedented speed. In the first half of 2026, the industry scale reached 165.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.5%. The number of companies is expanding simultaneously. As of May 2026, the number of embodied intelligence-related companies in the country has exceeded 10,000, including 1,025 humanoid robot-related companies and more than 140 complete machine companies. Robots are no longer just exhibits on booths, but are beginning to face bulk purchase orders, and the picture of commercialization is becoming clearer. These rising numbers, every percentage point of growth, and the establishment of every new enterprise are all driven by day-to-day persistence. If innovation is the key to the future, then young science and technology creators are the ones who hold the key and bend to unlock the door. Rather than dreaming or dreaming, they got closer to the goal through countless trials and errors and moved forward step by step with solid actions.

Not only that, industrial upgrading is never something that can be accomplished with passion alone. It requires the ability to endure boredom and sit on the bench - and this is precisely the most unusual trait of this group of scientific and technological innovators. At present, the conversion of old and new driving forces is in a critical period of climbing and upgrading. Industrial upgrading requires not only policies and funds, but also people who are willing to thoroughly polish every technology and implement every detail. What this group of young people are doing is precisely the most basic and indispensable part of this transformation - "pulling" the word "new" out of documents and putting it into robotic arms, gloves and driverless cars, so that it can actually operate and generate value.

This is the appearance of "improving quality to the new" that should be seen most: behind the beating data, there is youth of flesh and blood beating.