China has started the championship of postdoctoral innovation and entrepreneurship competition in Quanzhou, Fujian province from Saturday.

Previous to the finals, which lasts from Saturday to Monday, 36,0000 competitors enrolled in 8,006 postdoctoral programs registered for the qualifying competitions. Out of these registering players, 46 teams and 1,743 innovative ideas on cutting-edge technologies such as AI, robots and energy conservation have advanced to the finals, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, one of the competition's hosts.

The nation has made great progress in cultivating postdoctoral talent in recent years. The enrollment number of postdoctoral researchers has increased from 12,000 in 2012 to 42,000 in 2024, with an annual growth rate of 10.8 percent, Li Jinsheng, secretary-general of the organizing committee of the competition, said at a news conference in Quanzhou on Saturday.

He said that the nation has produced over 400,000 postdoctoral researchers and that there are currently about 135,000 of them are serving at postdoctoral research stations nationwide.

"The postdoctoral program has become an important system to cultivate young sci-tech talent and a successful practice to push forward the nation's development of education, technology and talent cultivation," he said, adding that the competition has helped postdoctoral students' innovative ideas be put into practice and strongly support the nation's development.

The nation has organized the first innovation and entrepreneurship competition for postdoctoral researchers in the southern province of Guangdong in 2021 and the second in East China's Shandong province in 2023.

Deng Jiahui in Quanzhou contributed to the story.