Digital tech seen spurring real economy

More efforts should be made to enhance the value of data elements, deepen digital transformation efforts in key industries and enterprises, and promote integration of the digital economy with the real economy, as part of the country's broader push to foster high-quality development of the digital economy, a senior official said.

Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the China International Big Data Industry Expo in Guiyang, Guizhou province, on Thursday.

Huang called for efforts to bolster digitalization in public services, improve the governance system of the digital economy, expand global cooperation in the digital economy field and build up a community with a shared future in cyberspace.

He also underscored the significance of accelerating the market-based circulation of data elements, developing new mechanisms for the development and utilization of data elements and strengthening the independent innovation abilities in core technologies.

Shen Yiqin, Party secretary of Guizhou, said more efforts are needed to nurture emerging digital industries, including big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and blockchain, and boost the in-depth integration of digital technologies with the real economy.

China will accelerate the construction of "new infrastructure" like 5G, industrial internet, internet of vehicles and national computing hubs at a rate that is moderately ahead of schedule, expand the application scenarios of cutting-edge technologies and propel the transformation and upgrade of industries, said Xiao Yaqing, minister of industry and information technology.

"Collecting, managing and making good use of data is the key to facilitating the development of the big data industry," Xiao said.

Xiao also called for promoting the integration and sharing of data resources, stepping up the establishment of a basic mechanism covering the confirmation of data-related rights, data trading and circulation, cross-border transmission, and security as well as exploring multiple data exchange models.

After years of development, China has taken a leading position in big data. Xiao's ministry has unveiled a plan for the big data sector's development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25), envisaging a scale topping 3 trillion yuan ($445.5 billion) by the end of 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of around 25 percent.

Yang Jie, chairman of China Mobile, the world's largest telecom operator by mobile subscribers, said the company aims to build more than 1.1 million 5G base stations by the end of this year, and speed up research and development of 6G, next-generation optical communication and other frontier technologies. It will also accelerate the layout in national computing hubs and data centers, he said.

Coby Chiu, vice-president of Tencent and chief operating officer of Cloud and Smart Industries Group, said the company has built data centers in Guian New Area in Guizhou, in an attempt to bolster the application of digital technologies into a wide range of industries like tourism, finance, agriculture and education.