With the theme of “Connectors in the Intelligent Era,” the 23rd Annual Management Conference was held in Beijing on November 27, 2025. Liu Hanyuan, Deputy Chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, Deputy to the NPC, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tongwei Group, attended and delivered a keynote speech.

A keynote speech by Chairman Liu Hanyuan

At the conference, Chairman Liu Hanyuan took “The Energy Support behind AI” as his entry point, offering an in-depth analysis of China’s current energy landscape and transition path. He proposed that the new energy industry would become the driving engine sustaining China’s rapid economic growth over the next twenty years.

“In the AI era, the most critical connection is the power carried by the grid behind AI,” Chairman Liu Hanyuan stated directly, highlighting his core viewpoint. As he noted, both in the United States and across the global industry, consensus centers on the challenges of energy supply and power security in the wake of large-scale AI applications. Meanwhile, how China can overcome the “L-shaped” economic slowdown and find new drivers of growth is closely tied to the energy issue. In his view, the energy industry, deeply connected with AI, is the key to solving this challenge.

As the world’s largest energy consumer, China’s energy structure is fundamental to its economic foundation. Chairman Liu Hanyuan highlighted several key figures: since China’s electricity consumption surpassed that of the United States in 2011, it has now grown to more than double the U.S. level. Throughout this period, the expansion of energy supply has consistently maintained a high elasticity coefficient relative to GDP growth. At the same time, China faces increasingly prominent challenges, including high external energy dependence and significant foreign exchange outflows. In recent years, the country’s energy import dependence has reached 70%–75%. In 2024 alone, the total value of imported energy exceeded USD 470 billion, making it the largest source of net foreign exchange outflow. Notably, imported energy resources—such as oil and natural gas—were almost entirely consumed within the domestic market. Even more critical is the strategic chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca, which has heightened the urgency of ensuring that China can “securely purchase energy and safely bring it home.”

Confronted with the dual pressures of energy security and economic development, Chairman Liu Hanyuan emphasized the need for a decisive transformation pathway. According to his analysis, among China’s more than 700 million tons of annual crude oil consumption, over 70% is used by the transportation sector. One trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity could replace the energy equivalent of 500 million tons of oil—an amount that costs China over USD 300 billion to import in 2024 alone. Meanwhile, China’s coal-dominated energy structure remains not only the primary source of carbon emissions but also a growing focus of environmental pressure from the international community.

“Clean energy—represented by PV and wind power—will become the driving force of this transformation,” Chairman Liu predicted. By around 2050, China’s electricity consumption will reach 30 trillion kilowatt-hours, with 50%-80% potentially supplied by clean energy sources, he estimated. This shift will not only address the challenges of energy security and carbon emissions, but also foster the emergence of massive industrial clusters with an annual output of RMB 10-20 trillion, equivalent to the size of two real estate industries. These new sectors will inject sustained momentum into China’s economic growth for the next ten to twenty years.

From a global perspective, the opportunities are even more significant. As Chairman Liu noted, the rise of the new energy industry will accelerate the internationalization of the RMB. As China’s PV products, new energy vehicles, and energy storage systems scale globally, the country will participate deeply in the over-USD-200-trillion market generated by the global drive toward carbon neutrality. Moreover, this transformation will support the overseas flow of RMB 50-100 trillion worth of related products, positioning China at the forefront of the world’s energy transition.