Aiming to be the nation's center of oceanographic research and commercialization of related technologies, Qingdao is stepping up efforts to develop a new urban area across 576 sq km in the north of city called Blue Silicon Valley.

"We must have a global vision when formulating strategies in every stage of developing the valley," said Li Qun, Party chief of Qingdao.

Last year, 70 projects in the valley with a combined investment value of 40 billion yuan ($6.55 billion) started construction or were planned.

"The key areas of focus are marine biology, seawater resource exploration, new materials and renewable energy, oceanographic instruments and marine equipment manufacturing," Li said.

One example is the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, which is expected to grow into a leading oceanographic research institution within three to five years on a par with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the US, and the National Oceanographic Centre of Britain.

Covering about 26 hectares of land and 62.7 hectares of sea, the China National Deep Sea Center serves as a support station for deep-sea facilities, including Jiaolong, China's manned submersible.

With a total of investment of 500 million yuan in the first phase, the center will be the fifth of its kind in the world following those in Russia, the US, France and Japan.

Expected to be completed by the end of 2014 and come into operation in 2015, the center's design plan includes a construction and maintenance workshop, a scientific research building, a large pool for experimental dives, and training facilities. It has five berths to accommodate vessels weighing from 3,000 to 6,000 metric tons.

Other science research and education institutions have also started construction, including the National Marine Equipment Quality Inspection Center, the Institute of Marine Geography, the Shandong University Qingdao Campus, the Microsoft Qingdao Cloud Computing Center and an R&D base for Courseware.

(China Daily 05/17/2014 page16)