BEIJING, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) — The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China:

COMPUTING INDUSTRY

The scale of China’s computing industry hit 2.6 trillion yuan (about 362.2 billion dollars) in 2022, according to the 2023 World Computing Conference, which opened on Friday in Changsha, central China’s Hunan Province.

“The new generation of information and communication technology has transformed the pattern of economic and social development,” said Zhao Zhiguo, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Zhao said that computing technology and the computing industry are showing strong vitality and immeasurable potential through disruptive innovation, and they are driving digital transformation across the board.

DNA COMPUTER

Chinese scientists have developed a new type of general-purpose and programmable computing unit based on DNA molecules, marking a key step towards building a DNA computer.

The study published this week in the journal Nature demonstrated a system which, by integration of multilayer DNA-based programmable gate arrays (DPGAs), can solve quadratic equation.

The researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University assembled the device with three layers of cascade DPGAs comprising 30 logic gates with around 500 DNA strands. It works to control the random collision of molecules.

SOLAR PROBE

China is planning to launch a solar exploration satellite to a previously unexplored orbit between the Earth and the sun in order to carry out solar probe and space weather monitoring.

The appraisal work of Xihe-2 solar exploration mission to the Sun-Earth L5 Lagrangian Point are in the pipeline, said Fang Cheng, one of the satellite’s designers, at the ongoing 10th Conference on Advanced Space Technology in Shanghai.

The Chinese team is working hard to launch the solar probe into planned orbit around 2026, according to the appraisal plan.