Data sector to see leapfrog development

The country has rolled out nearly 30 policy measures related to the development and utilization of public data resources and urban digital transformation. It has advanced the construction of data infrastructure, such as a national integrated computing power network, and expanded the application scenarios of data in a wide range of sectors.

Liu said the country had built 4.55 million 5G base stations by the end of June, and the number of gigabit broadband users had reached 226 million. China's total intelligent computing capacity had reached around 780,000 PFlops, ranking second globally.

PFlops, or petaflops, measure computational performance, and one unit represents 1 quadrillion floating-point operations per second.

Looking ahead, he said the country will enhance the supply capacity of data resources, expand the application scenarios of data in key fields, cultivate data enterprises, and optimize the data industry to boost the development of the digital economy and nurture new quality productive forces.

Jiang Xiaojuan, a professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "The application of data across various fields has injected fresh impetus into China's industrial development."

The industrialization of digital and AI technologies, Jiang added, will significantly improve production efficiency, optimize the allocation of resources and lower costs.

The digital economy has played a vital role in bolstering the transformation of manufacturing, services, consumption and international trade, and in driving overall economic growth, she said.

It is vital to give full play to the multiplier effects of data elements, expand data applications to a diverse range of sectors and increase the supply of high-quality data, Jiang said.

In February 2023, China unveiled a plan for overall digital development, vowing to make important progress in the construction of a "Digital China" by 2025. By 2035, the nation is expected to be at the global forefront of digital development.

China will ramp up efforts to advance the high-quality development of the data industry, with the compound annual growth rate of the data industry surpassing 15 percent by 2029, according to a guideline jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Data Administration and four other government departments in December.

By 2029, the structure of the data industry will be significantly optimized and the supply capacity of data products and services will be greatly improved, while a batch of data enterprises with global competitiveness will be cultivated, the guideline said.