China Exclusive: Exhibition brings sci-tech marvels to Beijing

An exhibition of Chinese technological wonders including the world's fastest computer is China's latest move to make science and technology seem less remote from people's lives.

The showcase of domestic achievements during the 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015) concludes in Beijing on Tuesday after wowing crowds since June 1.

It has featured more than 800 items in fields like intelligent driving, deep-sea diving, robot surgeons, and the BeiDou navigation system.

"We used to only see moon landings in foreign blockbusters, but this exhibition enlightens us that China has grasped cutting-edge technology as well. This is such a great event, I believe it can build up kids' devotion toward our nation," science enthusiast Sun Miaoke said at the exhibition.

Zhang Zequan, 8, was unable to contain his excitement when seeing the return capsule of an unmanned lunar orbiter retrieved from in Inner Mongolia in November 2014. "This is really cool!" Zhang said.

His father took him on a simulator of astronauts' experiences in the Tiangong-1 space lab.

"It's more than visiting a science show," Zhang Zequan's father said. "My son was overwhelmed by what he has seen. It helps the young to get a better understanding of our mother country's real power."

In the other corner of the exhibition, the Tianhe-2 supercomputer attracted a large crowd.

Tianhe-2, which means "Milky Way-2" in Chinese, can operate at 33.86 petaflops per second, the equivalent of 33,860 trillion calculations per second.

"It is driving multiple industries and sci-tech projects. It can handle high levels of analyzing, computing and processing," Yuan Xuefeng, director with the National Supercomputer Center, said in a previous interview with Xinhua.

The supercomputer has been used in national priority projects covering energy, bioscience, pollution control and high-speed rail design.

"High technology is not far away. It will become reachable in our lives," said Li Zhaoxin, a science fiction researcher at the show. "Innovations like 3D printing have brought tremendous change. The more progress we achieve, the stronger support it will give to the rise of our nation." Endi