BEIJING, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- Beijing has invested heavily in research and development, with the total R&D expenditure of large and medium-sized major enterprises surging 17.6 percent to 150 billion yuan (about 22 billion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months of this year.

Among the total expenditure, the city's key enterprises in the information transmission, software and IT service sectors spent 110.9 billion yuan on R&D from January to August, up 24 percent year on year, according to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics.

The R&D expenditure of industrial enterprises increased by 6.2 percent year on year to 22.85 billion yuan during the same period, the bureau said on its website.

The large and medium-sized major enterprises in the city had a total of 124,000 valid patents by the end of August, up 21.4 percent year on year.