National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals is the material basis for independent innovation in animal breeding industry and a strategic resource for ensuring food security, promoting green development and supporting rural revitalization. The National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals is an important part of the National Science and Technology Infrastructure Platform, which is a national science and technology infrastructure platform for the collection and preservation of live resources, genetic material and information data, technical training and sharing services for domestic animals.  The National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals is supported by the Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and jointly built by China Agricultural University, National General Station of Animal Husbandry, Jiangsu Institute of Poultry Sciences, and the Institute of Specialty Animal and Plant Sciences CAAS.

The predecessor of the National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals is the national science and technology infrastructure platform construction project "Pilot Construction of Animal Germplasm Resources Description and Sharing" (2003), which has undergone the transformation from a project to a basic condition platform and then to a resource center. After nearly 20 years of efforts, the National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals has collected and preserved a total of 580,000 copies of genetic material of domestic animal species, including pigs, chickens, cattle, sheep and horses, with more than 150 species effectively preserved. It has salvaged and preserved more than 90,000 copies of somatic cells and stem cells of domestic animals, establishing the world's largest livestock and poultry somatic cell bank, and has formulated 103 technical protocols such as resource description specifications, as well as formulated 14 national or industry standards, including the Endangered Classification of Livestock Genetic Resources, which provides important technical support for the investigation and monitoring of animal germplasm resources, the preparation and examination of gene bank, and the preservation of genetic material. In addition, the National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals has conducted basic trait identification and functional gene excavation of the stored resources, screened out a number of germplasm resources with high yield, high quality and strong resistance to adversity, which supported the development of a number of new local breeds such as Wuzhishan mini-pig, Z-type Peking duck and Peking chicken.

The National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals actively promotes the sharing services of germplasm resources. During the 2010 to 2019, a total of 138 species of live domestic animal resources and 86 species of genetic material have been integrated, while 23.85 million copies of physical domestic animal resources, including 16.7 million copies of live resources and 7.15 million copies of genetic material, have been provided to more than 2,000 institutions in China. It has carried out research and demonstration of efficient ecological breeding technology, selection and breeding of domesticated animal breeds, and construction and utilization of cell banks in nearly 20 provinces. It has annually carried out 1,500 breed selection and breeding and resource development and utilization services, which trained 22,000 technicians, served 13,000 enterprises and individual users, and issued 45,000 sets of downloadable materials. It has supported 493 national major science and technology projects, published 492 papers in international journals such as Science and Nature Communications and 81 theses, authorized 156 patents and 58 national standards, and granted 21 national science and technology progress awards.

The National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals established the national domestic animal germplasm resource center information system (http://www.cdad-is.org.cn/). It has actively carried out the integration of domestic animal resources, including pigs, cattle, sheep, poultry, deer, stored 722 (breeds) of core metadata of livestock and poultry animals, updated 4971 of information, and collated the core metadata information of 236 varieties in the processing platform. To date, the total number of portal visits has exceeded 6 million, while the total number of website visits has surpassed 3.19 million. The number of unique visitors has reached over 2 million with an annual visitation rate of 186,900 and a total data download volume exceeding 253.31 GB.

The establishment of the National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals is of great practical value and theoretical significance to the development of China's livestock industry, providing livestock workers and producers with a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics of livestock and poultry germplasm, broadening the scope of use of excellent resources and genes, and providing a new means to cultivate new breeds with high quality, resistance to adversity and disease, as well as providing an important basis for the conservation and sustainable use of livestock and poultry genetic diversity. In the future, the National Germplasm Resource Center for Domestic Animals will focus on the major needs of original innovation in agricultural science and technology and the development of modern breeding industry, take the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy proposed by the 19th Party Congress as the guideline, focus on safe protection and efficient utilization, highlight systemic, basic, public welfare and forward-looking, and concentrate on overcoming major scientific problems in the conservation and utilization of domestic animal germplasm resources. It will further increase the total amount of germplasm resources preservation, enrich the genetic diversity of resources, discover excellent germplasm and genetic resources, build a world-class platform for collecting, preserving, sharing and utilizing domestic animal germplasm resources to provide material basis and technical support for safe preservation of domestic animal germplasm resources, selection and breeding of new animal breeds, development of modern breeding industry, and ensuring the safety of livestock products.