Chinese science fiction authors are creating huge business potential, thanks to winning top-level awards as well as their high-level academic background and the integration trend between literature and the digital entertainment industry, industry experts say.

Chinese author Hai Ya winning this year's Hugo Award, the top sci-fi literature award, is expected to be another shot in the arm for the development of the whole industry.

The winners of the 2023 Hugo Awards were announced last weekend, with Hai Ya taking home the Best Novelette award for "The Space-Time Painter".

The results were announced at a formal ceremony at the 81st World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan Province. It was also the first time the world's largest and longest-running sci-fi gathering was held in China.

Sci-fi is one of the most popular categories of online literature and for adapting into animation, dramas or films. Popular titles like "Swallowed Star" have gained more than a billion clicks after being adapted for an online cartoon series, according to the Chinese Sci-Fi IP (intellectual property) Value report released at the Chengdu conference.

Chinese streaming sites are "pursuing quality rather than quantity" with a healthy competition, which requires high-quality sci-fi stories. On the other hand, the progress of special effects technology also boosts the trend, the report said.

A recent example is "Three-Body" by Liu Cixin, who won the Hugo Award in 2015. Its cartoon and TV series have been streamed on sites Bilibili and Tencent, creating huge influence and online traffic. Another Netflix series "3-Body Problem," based on Liu's novel of the same name, will premiere on Netflix in 2024.

By 2022, a total of more than 42,000 writers has created science fiction stories on QiDian, an online literature platform. Among them, more than 70 percent of the signed writers in the sci-fi category boast an undergraduate degree or above, which ensures high-quality content production, according to China Literature, which owns QiDian.

Several sci-fi writers, signed with Tencent-owned China Literature, won the Galaxy Award in October, which is China's most prestigious science fiction award, launched in 1986.

They include "Secret Corner" by Gun Kai, who lives in Shanghai, and "My Healing Game," which describes a journey starting from a virtual-reality headset.

Some awarded sci-fi titles on QiDian are being adapted for cartoon and online drama works, Shanghai-based China Literature said.