China's New Battery Plan Sets 2030 Solid-State Target

Seven government agencies, including MIIT, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Transport, jointly issued the document on 28 September. CnEVPost reported on its publication.

The plan sets a roadmap for 2026 through 2030. It follows China's 11 September release of a separate five-year plan for the intelligent connected electric vehicle industry.

What the plan asks for

Beyond the solid-state deployment target, the plan sets a goal of 15,000 charge-discharge cycles for long-life lithium batteries. It also calls for leading manufacturers to reach product defect rates at the parts-per-billion level. The document names advanced electrode materials, new electrolytes and high-end auxiliary materials as areas needing breakthroughs. It asks for faster work on commercialisation technologies, specifically ionic conductivity, cycling stability and cost optimisation. Specific measures include improving interfacial contact, extending cycle life, advancing pressure-system engineering and scaling up production of high-performance solid electrolytes. The plan also calls for combining high-voltage, high-capacity cathode materials with new lithium-metal-based anodes and anode-free designs, and for developing manufacturing equipment such as isostatic presses.

For sodium batteries, the plan emphasises cost, safety and resource availability. It asks for cold-resistant, high-energy-density power batteries and long-life energy storage batteries.

China plans a supply system centred on lithium batteries, complemented by sodium and flow batteries. The strategy aims to strengthen the country's ability to commercialise all-solid-state and ultrafast-charging batteries.

On industry structure, the document supports corporate mergers and restructuring. It calls for faster exploration of domestic lithium, cobalt and other mineral resources. On recycling, the plan requires companies to establish used-battery collection systems aligned with their sales volumes. It encourages building recycling capacity in major export markets where conditions permit. The document also proposes a digital identity management system for NEV power batteries and explores battery passport arrangements and mutual recognition of carbon footprint data.

Export controls and the talent question

The battery push sits alongside a wider tightening of China's technology export regime. DW reported on 24 September that new entry-exit rules took effect last week. These rules give Chinese authorities the power to stop engineers, founders and other specialists from leaving the country if their expertise in batteries, rare earths or artificial intelligence is judged a threat to industrial and technological security. The same report said China has tightened outbound-investment rules, cracked down on Chinese nationals holding wealth offshore and restricted the posting of technical staff overseas.

"These measures suggest that Beijing is deeply concerned about economic weakness and substantial capital outflows," Henry Gao, a law professor at Singapore Management University, told DW.

DW also reported that Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis, believes the talent block will matter more than the squeeze on capital.

"You can still move money slowly, with approvals," she told DW. "You cannot easily replace a process engineer who cannot board a plane."

Bloomberg Intelligence estimated some $1 trillion in Chinese wealth left the country last year. According to the DW report, this was the largest outflow since records began in 2006.

On the chip side, The Information reported on Sunday, 27 September, that China's government has signalled it may let firms such as Alibaba and ByteDance buy Nvidia's new RTX Pro 5500 workstation card. The Blackwell-based product has 84GB of memory and was unveiled by Nvidia this month.

According to the report, the tech ministry asked some companies how many chips they plan to buy and for what purpose. It told some firms it intends to approve the purchases. Reuters said it could not immediately verify the report, and none of Nvidia, Alibaba, ByteDance or the ministry had commented publicly by Sunday.

Health tech and the AI framing

Elsewhere in China's technology export story, Rest of World reported on 24 September that China now accounts for half of global drug licensing deals. More clinical trials are conducted in China than in the US. Ruby Wang, author of an upcoming book on China's biotech sector, told the outlet that this year China's share of global drug out-licensing deals could reach 60%. She cited Pfizer's commitments to license cancer drug candidates from 3SBio and Innovent Biologics, and noted that China remains weaker in immunology and in commercialising its own drugs.

The political framing around all of this has drawn scepticism.

Ars Technica reported on 23 September that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a proposed US-China AI safety notification mechanism ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting. However, the plan involves no officials with technical expertise. One source mocked it to Politico, saying "the scientific, technical term is BS." Sam Bresnick of Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology told Ars the arrangement is "better than nothing for sure, but I don't have a lot of confidence that that is going to make a major difference going forward."

Rest of World argued on 22 September that Washington is running the wrong race. The outlet pointed to Chinese rules on AI-generated content labelling and protections for children and the elderly, and cited a trust gap: 87% of Chinese citizens trust AI compared with 23% in the US. The two accounts differ on how much the notification channel can achieve, but both describe the current US approach as focused on capability limits rather than deployment rules.