Xia Zhiqiang, deputy dean of the Sanya South Breeding Research Institute at Hainan University, noted that the region offers unique advantages for crop breeding, with more than 70 percent of new agricultural crop varieties in China undergoing accelerated breeding exactly in Hainan.

 
His research team has developed a large language model of OryzaG3, a rice genome designed for the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in crop breeding. The model integrates approximately 700 million parameters and is comparable in efficiency to foreign analogues with a significantly larger number of parameters, while data processing speed has increased fourfold.

 
According to the scientist, since Hainan embraced a free trade port experiment, opportunities for international cooperation, including in the sphere of cross-border biological data exchange, have expanded, and simplified import procedures for scientific equipment and materials have been introduced.

Xia said that the team plans to finish improving the rice genome and launch its commercial application by 2027, build a system of genomic models for major agricultural and tropical crops by 2030, and establish an international collaborative modeling network involving the Belt and Road countries by 2035.

Shi Jingya, a research fellow at BGI-Research Sanya, has been doing research into deep-sea microorganisms and developing a marine biological resource bank. Shi's research team is searching for biologically active substances in microorganisms living in the deep-sea areas of the South China Sea as it is busy creating a database and sample collection that could potentially find application in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and the production of functional foods, the newspaper wrote.

 
According to Shi, the Hainan FTP status has helped promoting international scientific cooperation, facilitated high-tech research equipment supplies, and accelerated the introduction of fundamental research results into industrial production.

Authorities in Hainan expect to transform the research hub in Sanya into a leading national center for research into crop breeding and the exploration of deep-sea biological resources, while benefiting from the free trade port policies and the concentration of research employees.