The Path to Industrializing Key Core Technologies Through Major Engineering Projects: A Case Study of the "Hualong One" Nuclear Power Project

重大工程推动关键核心技术产业化的实现路径—以“华龙一号”核电工程项目为例

Abstract

China is at a critical stage in building an innovative nation and a world-class science and technology power. Enhancing the ability to tackle key core technologies and realizing the transformation and industrialization of technological achievements are crucial to whether China's key core technologies can enter the main economic battlefield and achieve domestic substitution in key core technologies in the field of national strategic security. Constrained by technological blockades from developed economies, China faces a "supply disruption" situation for key core technologies. Given the urgency of meeting major national strategic needs and achieving domestic substitution, the industrialization of key core technologies is extremely urgent. Based on research on collaborative mechanisms and technology industrialization, this study focuses on the process of key core technologies from "laboratory technology → technology transfer → technology industrialization," using China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) as the research object and employing a single-case study method to explore the path to industrialization of key core technologies in the nuclear power field driven by major engineering projects. The study finds that the path to industrialization of key core technologies driven by major engineering projects is a process from a "package" of technologies to the coupling of technology and engineering, then to the interactive iteration of technology and engineering, and finally to mass production. As the general contractor of a major engineering project, the case company fully integrated and allocated the resources and relationships of all participants through task-based and system-based collaboration, promoting the industrialization of technology. Technological achievement transformation is the result of connecting the two endpoints of technology and engineering in major engineering projects, while technological industrialization is the result of achieving interconnectivity after the endpoints are connected, and then continuously iterating and cycling in subsequent projects. This research aims to enrich the theoretical research on practical issues such as tackling key core technologies and industrializing key core technologies in my country's management practice, clarify the realization path and process mechanism of technological industrialization, and also provide useful references and insights on how to promote the localization and substitution of key core technologies.