China’s sci-fi industry rides a tech wave as revenues hit record high

Robots perform at the China Science Fiction Convention in Beijing.

The Chinese sci-fi industry saw revenues reach a record high last year, according to a report released during the event.

Photo: Xinhua China is seeing surging public interest in science fiction amid its push for technological development, with revenues reaching a record high and online search traffic more than tripling last year, according to a new report.

China’s sci-fi industry saw its gross revenues reach 126.1 billion yuan (US$18.2 billion) in 2025, up 15.7 per cent year on year, according to an annual report released at the China Science Fiction Convention on Friday, as reported by Xinhua.

The report also highlighted a 203.3 per cent year-on-year surge in sci-fi-related search traffic in China, as well as a continued expansion in the global reach of Chinese intellectual property.

The backbone of China’s sci-fi industry remains the video game sector, which accounted for more than 60 per cent of total revenues last year.

Sci-fi games generated 77.91 billion yuan in revenue, with Chinese titles also performing strongly in overseas markets, according to the report. “Overall, sci-fi games still account for the lion’s share of the market,” said Wu Yan, a science fiction writer and professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology, who helped compile previous editions of the annual report.

The younger generation has a particular preference for immersive and participatory forms of entertainment, according to Wu, and other media still cannot match video games in terms of either public interest or market scale.

The growing public enthusiasm for sci-fi comes amid China’s intensified focus on becoming a technology powerhouse, with Beijing making tech self-reliance a major focus of its latest five-year plan.

According to the report, the sci-fi derivatives sector recorded a noticeable 179.4 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue to 7.07 billion yuan, with original intellectual property acting as the primary market driver.

It noted that new product formats, such as AI-integrated designer toys, were injecting fresh market momentum.

China’s sci-fi industry broke through into the mainstream in the 2010s thanks to the global success of author Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, which sold millions of copies and was later adapted into a big-budget Netflix series.

The blockbuster film The Wandering Earth – based on another novella by Liu – became a massive hit in China after its rel

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