BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- The following is a summary of published science and technology news of China.

SCIENCE FOUNDATION

The National Natural Science Foundation of China, a major domestic funding source for basic research and frontier exploration, financed over 52,000 programs in 2023, with a total investment of more than 31.8 billion yuan (4.48 billion U.S. dollars).

The foundation's focus in 2024 will be on fostering originality and unrestricted exploration.

LOW-ALTITUDE ECONOMY

The size of China's low-altitude economy exceeded 500 billion yuan (69.15 billion U.S. dollars) in 2023, up by 33.8 percent year on year, according to a report.

The report published on Monday by CCID consulting, a think tank under China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has shown that the country's civilian drone sector expanded to nearly 120 billion yuan last year, while the industry of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft registered close to nearly 1 billion yuan.

QUANTUM BATTERY

Chinese researchers have proposed a quantum battery concept to realize remote charging, effectively solve the problem of energy dissipation, and achieve durable and efficient performance in quantum batteries.