China’s emphasis on accelerating the event of the digital financial system and advancing the idea of “Digital China” will give the nation a aggressive edge in strategic rising sectors and safeguard world safety, stated officers and specialists.
Emphasizing that the growth of reducing-edge digital applied sciences has emerged as a brand new engine driving China’s financial development, they known as for heightened efforts to push ahead the development of digital infrastructure, bolster the deeper integration of the true and digital economies, and promote technological innovation and the appliance of quickly evolving synthetic intelligence in a wider vary of sectors.
When delivering a keynote speech on the opening ceremony of the Second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, in December 2015, President Xi Jinping stated that China is implementing the “Internet Plus” motion plan and advancing the constructing of a “Digital China”.
In a congratulatory letter despatched to the primary Digital China Summit, which opened in April 2018 in Fuzhou, Fujian province, Xi known as for fostering new driving forces via informatization, with a view to promote new growth and make new achievements.
He emphasised that digitalization, networking and the appliance of clever applied sciences, which have been vastly developed, are taking part in more and more necessary roles in selling social and financial growth, modernizing China’s governance capability, and assembly the folks’s ever-rising wants for a greater life.
This 12 months marks the tenth anniversary of the nation’s efforts to assemble a “Digital China”. China’s digital financial system has gained sturdy momentum lately, with exceptional achievements made in fields akin to synthetic intelligence, built-in circuits, industrial software program and fundamental software program.
The added worth of core industries of the digital financial system accounted for about 10 p.c of GDP in 2024, whereas the full information output reached 41.06 zettabytes, marking a strong 25 p.c 12 months-on-12 months enhance, in line with the “Digital China Development Report 2024” launched by the National Data Administration.
The report stated the full scale of China’s computing energy reached 280 EFLOPS final 12 months. EFLOPS is a unit of the pace of pc techniques and is the same as 1 quintillion floating-level operations per second. Furthermore, it stated, the nation had constructed greater than 4.25 million 5G base stations by the tip of December.
“To accelerate the building of a ‘Digital China’, it is crucial to seize the unprecedented opportunities brought about by AI,” stated Liu Liehong, head of the NDA, on the just lately concluded eighth Digital China Summit, highlighting the importance of advancing reforms associated to the market-oriented allocation of knowledge parts and implementing the AI Plus initiative.
Noting that information serves as a brand new sort of manufacturing issue, Liu stated that extra efforts are wanted to extend the provision of excessive-high quality information, speed up the mixing of knowledge parts with AI, technological innovation and industrial growth and software, and press forward with the development of nationwide computing energy infrastructure.
He famous that new computing energy in main computing hubs will account for greater than 60 p.c of the nation’s complete by the tip of this 12 months, and known as for cultivating a nationwide built-in information market, establishing requirements and techniques for information circulation and transaction, and strengthening worldwide cooperation within the digital financial system area.
Luo Zhongwei, a researcher on the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Industrial Economics, stated, “Innovative digital technologies represented by AI, 5G, cloud computing and big data are currently finding a wide range of applications across various industries such as manufacturing, finance and healthcare, and speeding up their integration with the real economy.”
Luo stated that facilitating the event of the digital financial system is of significant significance for nurturing new high quality productive forces, propelling the clever transformation and upgrading of conventional industries and consolidating financial restoration momentum, with a view to drive a shift from outdated development drivers to new ones amid a risky exterior atmosphere and tariff pressures from the United States.
To acquire an higher hand amid more and more fierce worldwide competitors, Luo confused the necessity to double down on indigenous innovation to make breakthroughs in core applied sciences in key fields like uncooked supplies, precision elements and excessive-finish gear, and broaden the economic software eventualities of superior applied sciences.
In February 2023, China unveiled a plan for the general structure of its digital growth, vowing to make necessary progress within the building of a “Digital China” by 2025, with efficient interconnectivity in digital infrastructure, a considerably improved digital financial system and main breakthroughs in digital technological innovation. By 2035, the nation is anticipated to be on the world forefront of digital growth.
“As a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is evolving, promoting the in-depth integration of digital technologies with the real economy is a necessary requirement for establishing a modern industrial system and a strategic choice of forging new competitive advantages on the global stage,” stated Pan Helin, a member of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s Expert Committee for Information and Communication Economy.
The transfer to develop the digital financial system is conducive to enhancing the resilience of business and provide chains, advancing new industrialization and realizing Chinese modernization, Pan stated.
He added {that a} greater push is required to bolster the dominant place of enterprises in boosting sci-tech developments, enhance monetary help for innovation-oriented tech corporations, and strengthen the coaching of excessive-caliber expertise.
Wu Jianping, an academician on the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stated the emergence of state-of-the-artwork digital applied sciences has laid a stable basis for unleashing the worth of huge information parts, which underscores the importance of safeguarding information safety, a prerequisite to making sure the orderly growth of the information business.
AI seen as key
AI, which has entered a stage of explosive development, is spearheading the event of the digital financial system and is being built-in into each side of business revolution and folks’s lives.
Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Chinese tech large Baidu Inc, stated that the appliance of AI know-how is reshaping the economic panorama and might be a transformative drive that revolutionizes growth over the subsequent 40 years.
Li stated the objective of the clever transformation of industries and society via AI is to satisfy folks’s wants — making know-how significant provided that it serves humanity by creating extra worth and contributing to society.
Zhou Hongyi, founding father of Chinese web enterprise 360 Security Group, stated: “Looking ahead, the growth potential of China’s economy will come from industrial upgrading driven by technological innovation, while AI represented by large language models will give birth to new production and business models in traditional fields such as manufacturing, agriculture and services, creating more social value.”
Zhou stated 360 Security Group will concentrate on digital safety and AI, including that you will need to promote the digital transformation of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as they face mounting strain from a scarcity of capital, expertise and know-how.
Denis Depoux, world managing director of market consultancy Roland Berger, stated, “China has made rapid progress in the development of AI technology, becoming one of the global leaders, and the pace will further accelerate. AI will unlock massive opportunities for our business.”
Foreign corporations can play a much bigger function in supporting China’s transformation in fields akin to decarbonization and the digitalization of business and provide chains, he added.