High industry expectations from new Digital China blueprint
Industry and capital markets have high expectations after the national-level Digital China blueprint was released this week to guide China's development of the digital economy in terms of data, artificial intelligence, cloud, 5G and other innovations.
The guidelines set a specific timeline for China's digital construction. By 2025, the digital infrastructure will be efficiently connected through a broad range of sectors, and China will become a global leader in digital innovations. By 2035, the level of digital development in China will be at the forefront of the world, according to the Digital China blueprint.
It accelerates the development of China's digital economy, and will greatly facilitate the digital transformation of industry users and digital services for consumers. The blueprint directly provides huge business opportunities for information technology vendors, said research firm International Data Corp, or IDC.
Robots are tested at the headquarters of Shanghai-based JAKA.
China will speed up the development of core tech innovations on humanoid robots, metaverse, quantum computing and 6G, Jin Zhuanglong, the minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said this week, when the capital market gave a positive feedback to the blueprint as information infrastructure shares all surged.
Telecommunications shares, including China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, jumped about 10 percent in the week. The 5G and cloud upgrades are expected to bring short-term benefits for these firms by 2025.
Shanghai-listed China Unicom rose 2.41 percent to close at 5.95 yuan (88 US cents) on Thursday, following a 10 percent daily cap rise on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, researcher IDC suggested that the blueprint will bring business opportunities in the digital infrastructure sector, big data and AI vendors.
The cybersecurity industry continues to have high requirements for digital sovereignty and urban management. And, China is expected to promote international cooperation, which is good for Chinese IT vendors' globalization layout, IDC added.
Shares of digital infrastructure vendors, which offer cloud, cybersecurity and AI capabilities, also soared this week.
Beijing eGOVA Co, a smart city service provider, closed at 24.38 yuan on Thursday with a 24.1 percent jump this week. Inspur Electronic, a server and cloud vendor, closed at 43.15 yuan, a 12.8 percent surge this week.
The Shanghai Data Exchange was founded in 2021 to speed up data element market development.
Meanwhile, data element has been defined as a "new track" in the Digital China blueprint to unleash business value, covering digital technology innovation, digital economy, digital governance and digital culture, according to the Shanghai Data Exchange.
The data exchange, founded in 2021, is designed to solve the dilemma faced by all government regulators worldwide – how to improve data usage to boost the economy and build a smart society, while also ensuring data security and a fair and transparent system.
Business data is formed into tradable data products, with potential value to be released in circulation transactions. Currently, the local data exchange is working on pricing the data assets for sustainable service.
