Digitalization campaign progresses apace

Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Security Group, said digitalization will play a key role in China's post-pandemic reconstruction and economic recovery.

In fact, the coronavirus epidemic has made the world more digital, prompting a growing number of people to work and study from home, buy groceries online and stay in touch with others via video.

"After the pandemic, the digital economy will see a wide range of application scenarios. Governments and enterprises are taking digitalization as key strategy for the next five to 10 years," Zhou said.

Citing China's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), Zhou said the digital economy has become an important driving force for high-quality and innovation-driven development.

"Looking ahead, I see huge growth potential in China's future digitalization. In the next five to 10 years, all enterprises may need to transform themselves into digital companies, or they may gradually phase out."

Lily Ma, head of Nutanix in China, said the company has witnessed business opportunities in the growing demand for digital transformation and new infrastructure construction in China.

"China has pledged fresh efforts in advancing the construction of new infrastructure projects, including next generation information networks and expanded 5G applications, which will offer new growth opportunities for us in the local market," Ma said.

A new report released by US-based cloud computing company Nutanix showed Chinese enterprises are speeding up their digitalization efforts and actively shifting their IT systems to the cloud in the aftermath of COVID-19.

According to the report, 62 percent of Chinese respondents said they have increased their investment in hybrid clouds as a direct result of the pandemic, compared with 46 percent globally.

Only 11 percent of Chinese respondents reported using traditional non-cloud enabled data centers exclusively in 2020, compared with 55 percent in 2019. Nearly 90 percent agree that an integrated mix of public and private cloud data centers is the ideal architecture for their companies.

"China is leading the world in economic recovery from the impact of COVID-19. The government has made a strategic decision to foster a new dual-circulation development pattern, which focuses on the domestic market as the country's economic mainstay, with domestic and foreign markets complementing each other," Ma said.

Ma spoke highly of China's accelerated efforts to enhance and upgrade the national IT infrastructure, saying it will help provide a resilient and reliable modern platform that helps rebuild today and repel the threats of tomorrow.

"China has taken the bold step to fully embrace the cloud and cloud infrastructure," Ma added. "It's up to all of us now, to ensure we optimize it for China and its businesses."