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Entering 2026, the industry continues to develop rapidly, with new technologies, new products, and new forms of expression emerging constantly. The more we are in such a phase, the more we need to return to some more fundamental questions. What’s your opinion on technology? How do you view innovation? My view has actually never changed—we don’t place faith in something being “new,” or “large,” or “popular”; instead, we remain honest about the problems, show respect for underlying principles, and rigorously verify the results. In my opinion, the scientific spirit is, first and foremost, not an impulse for innovation, but the ability to falsify. Many people understand innovation as “coming up with new ideas.” But the true spirit of science is not merely to come up with ideas, but to constantly prove whether one might be wrong. Within CATL, when any new technology or product is proposed, the team’s initial reaction isn’t just excitement; rather, they ask: In what scenarios might it malfunction? CATL was the first company in the industry to establish a department dedicated to safety and reliability; internally, it is referred to as the “Countermeasures Team”. Their KPIs are not about proving how good the product is or how strong its specifications are, but rather about identifying what problems the product might encounter under certain conditions, the severity of those problems, whether they could affect the company’s ecosystem, whether they could threaten consumers’ safety, and whether they could damage the reputation of our partners. It is because of them that our products can withstand various operating conditions after being launched on the market. Only a team that always maintains a “falsification mechanism” has a greater chance of getting closer to the truth. The greatest enemy of the scientific spirit is not ignorance, but the tendency to oversimplify complex issues and to explain them in a simplistic manner too early. The true spirit of science is to acknowledge complexity, break it down, and under such complex constraints, get the problem right and solve it. Science isn’t empty rhetoric; it’s something rigorous, replicable, and verifiable. Talking about subversion without considering objective laws is, in essence, an attempt to ignore the costs involved. The true spirit of science is not being excited about concepts, but being sensitive to errors. “Fear stems from ignorance; awe stems from deep understanding.” Behind batteries lie the immutable laws of electrochemistry and the boundaries set by thermodynamics. CATL never fantasizes about a “overnight revolution” miracle; instead, it holds the boundaries in awe. In the battery industry, microscopic defects, impurities at the ppm level, and voltage fluctuations in the millivolt range—things that ordinary people cannot perceive—can ultimately lead to safety incidents. Our “Extreme Manufacturing” technique reduces the defect rate from a few parts per million in the industry to one part in a billion, that is, at the ppb level. This ensures not only safety today, but also safety, stability, and reliability over 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, and throughout the entire lifecycle. True innovation often doesn’t occur in the most high-profile settings; rather, it happens in the intricacies of material systems, in the details of structural design, and in countless aspects such as thermal management, manufacturing processes, and quality control. This is what’s known as “practicing one’s craft within a tiny space.” People who work in science and technology are often not easily moved by concepts; instead, they are extremely sensitive to minor deviations and anomalies. Scientific spirit, or continued investment in using first-principles to explore boundaries. Over the past decade, we have invested over 100 billion yuan in research and development. In 2025 alone, this figure exceeded 20 billion yuan. We hold over 60,000 patents, and for six consecutive years, we’ve ranked first in the industry in terms of the growth rate of patent applications. Someone asked me: Is it worth spending over 20 billion yuan on research and development each year? My answer is: The question itself is asked incorrectly! For CATL, investment in R&D is not a cost; it is an ability to navigate through economic cycles. We invested during the industry downturn in 2020, we invested when raw material prices soared in 2022, and we continued to invest even when the industry was engaged in price wars in 2024. Because first-principles tell us that we are still far from the limits of electrochemistry, and the possibilities of materials science have not yet been exhausted. Every dollar invested in research and development brings us one step closer to that boundary. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly changing the way scientific research and engineering development are carried out. But here, it is not used to replace judgment; rather, it is a means to view problems more deeply and conduct verifications more quickly. Specifically, our approach combines \"physical mechanism derivation\" with \"big data learning\": on one hand, AI is used to accelerate quantum chemistry calculations in order to obtain more accurate results of the microscopic mechanisms ； On the other hand, deeply analyze large amounts of experimental and operational data to leverage them for research and development. Our “Enhanced Intelligence” project won the MINDS award from the World Economic Forum this year, and was recognized as a “global benchmark for AI-driven industrial transformation”. Behind this, it is essentially the scientific spirit. Because no matter how tools change, the most fundamental aspects of scientific research remain unchanged: it is still necessary to respect laws, evidence, and verification. Author: Zeng Yuqun, Chairman of CATL