Established in 2001 with approval from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture (NERCITA) is a national-level innovation platform dedicated to engineering technology R&D in agricultural and rural informatization. Under the leadership of Chief Scientist Academician Zhao Chunjiang, the center has evolved over nearly three decades into a global hub for agricultural information technology and intelligent equipment development, serving as a key driver of the digital agricultural revolution and smart agriculture advancement.

The center's primary mission is to address the critical demands of building China into an agricultural powerhouse and advancing rural revitalization. Focusing on five strategic areas—agricultural sensors and quantitative remote sensing technologies, intelligent agricultural decision-making and information management systems, precision operation technologies and smart equipment, agricultural bio-environmental intelligent control technologies, and agricultural product quality safety control with intelligent logistics—the center drives source technology innovation, constructs technical platforms, and develops major products. These initiatives provide robust scientific and technological support for smart agriculture development and digital rural construction in Beijing and across the nation.

The center boasts a high-caliber research team of over 600 members led by Academician Zhao Chunjiang, spanning 24 academic disciplines, making it the largest professional agricultural informatization research team in China. Designated as an Innovation Talent Cultivation Demonstration Base by the Ministry of Science and Technology, it annually trains over 150 master's/doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers.Having undertaken more than 1,000 national and provincial-ministerial-level projects, the center has secured over 2,000 authorized invention patents (including 10 PCT patents and 7 Paris Convention patents), published over 1,500 SCI-indexed papers and 1,400 EI-indexed papers. Its honors include 5 international awards such as the World Summit on the Information Society Award (2003), 10 National Science and Technology Progress Awards, and over 140 provincial-ministerial-level recognitions.As the national-level innovation epicenter and dissemination hub for modern agricultural high-tech, the center has established 116 demonstration transformation bases with long-term liaison stations nationwide. Its achievements have been implemented across all 34 provincial-level regions in China and adopted by over 2,000 agricultural enterprises, cooperatives, industrial parks, and production bases. Selected technologies have been extended to Southeast Asian countries including Vietnam, with annual sales revenue of its technical products reaching 300 million yuan.