SASAC Launches ‘Scene Vientiane’ Initiative for State-Owned Enterprise Innovation
China’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) launched the “Scene Vientiane” (场景万象) special initiative for central state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Beijing on July 9, releasing the first batch of ten landmark application scenarios designed to drive innovation across key industrial sectors. The initiative marks a strategic shift in how China’s largest state-owned enterprises engage with private-sector partners and external innovators.
Context and Policy Background
The “Scene Vientiane” initiative builds on a broader policy push by the Chinese government to accelerate the cultivation and opening of application scenarios for new technologies. In November 2025, the State Council issued the “Implementation Opinions on Accelerating Scenario Cultivation and Opening to Promote Large-Scale Application of New Scenarios” (Guobanfa [2025] No. 37), which explicitly required state-owned enterprises—especially central SOEs—to proactively open scenarios in their core business areas, as reported by China News Service.
The initiative also builds on the “Huanxin Community” (焕新社区) platform, an AI open-source platform launched by SASAC at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference. The new “Scenario Zone” within Huanxin Community now serves as an all-weather, normalized supply-demand matching service platform, transforming central SOEs’ scenario resources into a shared platform for industrial innovation.
Key Developments
According to CCTV News, the first batch of ten landmark scenarios covers areas including artificial intelligence (AI), computing-electricity-carbon coordination, green electricity production-storage application, and mega hydropower engineering 3D design platforms. The first batch of central SOE opening list plans to include approximately 100 scenarios, with a normalized scenario project cultivation database to be established.
SASAC Vice Chairman Pang Xiaogang (庞骁刚) emphasized the collaborative nature of the initiative. “Scenario cultivation and opening absolutely cannot be a one-man show,” Pang said. “Each central enterprise must strengthen coordination and collaboration with all parties, forming a virtuous cycle of ‘central enterprises providing scenarios, society providing solutions, and cooperation producing results,’ allowing more partners to stand on the central enterprises’ scenario stage.”
Pang further explained that scenario opening can guide enterprises to actively invest in strategic emerging industries and future industries, creating a second growth curve and achieving industrial quality improvement and upgrading. It can also establish and promote domestic major technical equipment standards, accelerating the leap from scale leadership to capability leadership.
Impact on Private Enterprises
The initiative is designed to help private enterprises with “hardcore technologies” overcome challenges of “technology landing difficulties, small product markets, and lack of growth support.” A case study from Qingdao, Shandong, highlighted by CCTV News, showed a power equipment manufacturer saw nearly 70% of its 2026 orders come from cooperation with central SOEs, with order quality improving by approximately 30%.
Zhou Jun (周君), an executive at the Qingdao power equipment company, reported that “in 2026, nearly 70% of our orders are in cooperation with central SOEs. The quality of company orders has improved by nearly 30% compared to the past. Especially following central SOEs to go overseas has brought a large number of international orders.”
Huang Youlin (黄友林), from China Huadian Corporation’s Engineering Construction and Supply Chain Management Department, added that since the opening of scenarios, the company can “better promote collaborative innovation across the industrial and supply chains, fully absorb high-quality innovation resources from the whole society, and fill gaps in specialized areas of the industrial chain.”
Distinction from Pilot Testing Platforms
According to the reporting, “Scene Vientiane” is fundamentally different from the previously proposed “pilot testing platforms” (中试平台). While pilot testing platforms serve as intermediate testing stations between laboratory R&D and mass production, helping科研成果 transition from samples to commodities, “Scene Vientiane” focuses on the growth of entire industrial chains. Central SOEs open their business scenarios and publish specific needs, allowing private enterprises, universities, and the whole society to participate and drive industrial chain development together.
Looking Ahead
In 2026, SASAC plans to select a group of cities with good reform foundations and suitable conditions to pilot scenario cultivation and opening, creating replicable and scalable experience for the whole country. The initiative could fundamentally reshape the relationship between China’s state-owned and private sectors, moving from competition toward complementary collaboration while supporting the broader “New Quality Productive Forces” (新质生产力) agenda by creating market-driven pathways for innovation.
As more central SOEs open their business scenarios to external partners, the initiative represents a significant experiment in open innovation at a national scale—one that could determine whether China’s vast state-owned sector can effectively catalyze the next wave of technological and industrial transformation.