Liang said the Chinese leadership has a strategy to boost innovation-driven development, and promoting advanced technologies including high-speed rail to other countries is part of it.

Addressing a biennial conference of the country's two leading think tanks earlier this month, President Xi Jinping said the direction of China's sci-tech development is "innovation, innovation and innovation."

Rail, nuclear tech tighten links

Innovation is the name of the game

China must catch up with new developments in sci-tech innovation and try to become a leading force, said Xi.

After growing to become the world's second largest economy, China is now seeking to shed its image as a "world factory" and inject vitality into the country by grasping opportunities the technological revolution offers.

Money has been pouring into innovation. Expenditure on research and development (R&D) topped 1 trillion yuan ($168 billion) in 2012, about 1.97 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). It surpassed 2 percent for the first time to reach 2.05 percent in 2013.

China plans to become an innovative country by 2020, when scientific progress is predicted to contribute 60 percent of the nation's economic development, and R&D investment will jump to 2.5 percent of GDP, according to a government sci-tech development document.

The contribution to China's economic development from scientific progress has increased from 39 percent in 2011 to nearly 52 percent at present, official statistics showed, with some key technologies ranking among the first in the world.

Tian Lipu, former commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), described China becoming an innovative country as "a revolution".