BEIJING - China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) directly administered by the central government stepped up investment in research and development (R&D) in 2025 as part of efforts to advance innovation-driven development, data from the country's state-asset regulator showed.

Their R&D spending reached 1.1 trillion yuan (about $158.51 billion) last year, marking the fourth consecutive year that annual investment exceeded the 1-trillion-yuan threshold, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

R&D intensity, the percentage of revenue that is reinvested in R&D, stood at 2.86 percent last year, the data showed.

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These SOEs employed 1.44 million R&D personnel and had established 474 national-level R&D platforms. They have also played an increasingly important role in promoting collaborative innovation among enterprises, universities and research institutes, the commission said.