Science was front and center in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s address to the Communist Party Congress on Sunday, reiterating the country’s aspirations and potential paths to becoming a global science and tech powerhouse.

The big picture: “Science and tech is the most important aspect of China’s overall desire to be self-reliant,” says Kit Conklin, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. “It fuels everything.”

• In his speech, Xi said a key goal is to “accelerate the realization of high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement.”
• China should be “guided by the national strategic needs, gather strength to carry out original and leading scientific and technological breakthroughs, and resolutely win the battle of key and core technologies,” he said.
• Those technologies include high-end AI and supercomputing chips that are subject to restrictions on being exported to China under new Biden administration policies, which could significantly set China back.

Read the full article at Axios.