Solid steps

According to a plan jointly released by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, or China's Cabinet, in February, the nation will take solid steps to build digital infrastructure and data resource systems and deepen the integration of digital technologies with the economy, politics, culture, society and ecology.

As per the plan, important progress will be made in the construction of a digital China by 2025, with effective interconnectivity in digital infrastructure, a significantly improved digital economy and major breakthroughs in digital technological innovation.

"Innovative digital technologies like 5G, AI, cloud computing, big data and the IoT are finding a wide range of applications across various industries, such as manufacturing and agriculture, and speeding up their integration with the real economy," said Pan Helin, co-director of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center at Zhejiang University's International Business School.

Pan said facilitating the development of a digital economy is vital to cultivate new growth drivers, speed up the digital and intelligent upgrades of enterprises and propel the country's economic recovery.

In the face of increasingly fierce competition, he added, enhanced efforts are needed to double down on indigenous innovation to make breakthroughs in core technologies in key fields and expand the industrial application scenarios of leading technologies, in order to gain a competitive edge on the global stage.

"Digital technologies have played an increasingly vital role in enhancing operational efficiency, cutting costs and improving core competitiveness of traditional industries," said Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association.

Xiang said the in-depth integration of digital technologies with the real economy will further enhance the resilience of China's industrial and supply chains and foster new growth drivers amid pressure on the economy.

In December, the country unveiled 20 key measures to build basic systems for data and fully unleash the value of data resources. The basic systems will involve the establishment of a data property rights system, a circulation and trading system, a revenue distribution system and a security governance system.

Moreover, China is establishing a national data bureau, which will coordinate the integration, sharing, development and application of data resources.

"The sharing, circulation, trading and application of data, regarded as a new production factor, will be key to promoting the country's digital development," said Chen Zuoning, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

China's digital economy touched 50.2 trillion yuan in 2022, second worldwide and accounting for 41.5 percent of the country's GDP, according to a report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

The high-quality development of the digital economy necessitates a higher requirement for computing power, Zhang Yong, chairman and CEO of Chinese tech heavyweight Alibaba Group, said in an earlier interview. "The in-depth integration of a new round of AI with the real economy will bring fundamental changes to various industries," he said.

The industrialization of digital technologies and digital transformation of industries is a vibrant manifestation of the integration of the digital economy with the real economy, he added.

Alibaba Group is making use of digital technologies to help small and medium-sized enterprises and speed up industrial transformation to empower the real economy, he said.

The application of AI technology is reshaping the industrial landscape and will be a transformative force that revolutionizes development over the next 40 years, said Robin Li, co-founder and CEO of Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc.

Li said the goal of the intelligent transformation of industries and society through AI is to fulfill people's needs — making technology meaningful only if it serves humanity by creating more value and contributing to society.