China's power battery industry has led the world in market scale for eight consecutive years, with sales reaching 786 gigawatt-hours in the first three quarters of this year, a year-on-year increase of 48.9 percent, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Wan Gang, president of the China Association for Science and Technology, told the 2025 World Power Battery Conference in Yibin, Sichuan province, that China's power battery exports topped 129 GWh in the first three quarters, up 32.7 percent year-on-year.

The robust development of China's power battery industry has underpinned the growth of its new energy vehicle sector. Sales of the country's new energy vehicles in the first half year reached 6.937 million units, a year-on-year increase of 40.3 percent, Wan said.

Despite the progress, Wan said the power battery industry is still facing some challenges that cannot be ignored. For example, the batteries' comprehensive performance still struggles to meet the all-climate and full-scenario application needs, while the upstream resource supply and downstream recycling systems still have room for improvement.

"The new artificial intelligence technologies, new model of vehicle-battery separation, and new format of vehicle-energy integration have brought brand-new opportunities for innovation in the industry while raising the bar for its development," he added.

He called on practitioners in the power battery industry to strengthen diversified technological innovation and develop intelligent management technologies to enhance battery safety, reliability, and environmental adaptability.

He also urged the practitioners to advance the innovative development in new application models and formats for power batteries, while establishing a closed-loop system that enables full-lifecycle traceability and recycling of power batteries to enhance the industry's sustainable development capacity.

A total of 180 green energy projects worth 86.13 billion yuan ($12.1 billion) were signed to settle in Yibin during the two-day conference. They cover fields of power battery, new types of energy storage, photovoltaic energy, and the digital economy.

The conference organizers said these projects are expected to generate a total output value of 90 billion yuan and create 30,000 jobs upon reaching full production capacity.