Formerly remote area gears up to drive into an exciting new future

Over the years, I've always pictured Guizhou province as a less developed and remote area in Southwest China, where tourism should be the supporting industry.

But when I first set foot in its capital Guiyang, during the 2017 China International Big Data Expo this May, I found out that the development of a new big data industry in recent y e a r s has brought about astonishing change in Guizhou.

There was a time the province was typically known for its lush green mountains, spicy sour cuisine, and as the home for ethnic minorities and poverty as well.

But what I found were extremely amazing high technologies grown and made locally - and that a slew of big data technologies have been widely applied, not only to the e-commerce business, but also to the booming e-governance sector and civil services, benefiting both local residents and governments.

During the big data expo, Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of internet giant Alibaba Group Holding, unveiled a new plan for a data center and a cloud platform project in cooperation with the Guiyang public security bureau, to provide more robust computing power and smarter artificial intelligence algorithms.

Guiyang public security bureau promised that in future - with the help of the clouding computing platform - vehicles with fake licenses will be automatically identified and pursued.

"For us, big data has become a powerful weapon against criminals," said Yu Yang, deputy chief of the bureau.

"With the use of big data analysis, burglary and robbery crimes dropped 5.99 percent in Guiyang last year, compared with 2015."

The achievement in e-government is just part of the big changes Guizhou province has embraced in recent years. I learnt more from interviews with local entrepreneurs.

It was hard not to be impressed by Truck Alliance, an Uber-type service for trucks based in Guiyang.

A $156 million capital injection in May, following $115 million of funding in December last year, crowned the startup as a unicorn. These are new, private companies worth at least $1 billion.

With the latest $56 million injection in August this year, the company has raised more than $327 million in funding.

Using big data technology, the Truck Alliance's app helps match trucks nationwide with commodity owners in need of transport.

Luo Peng, president and co-founder of Truck Alliance, said that by using big data, it was able to help drivers to directly find commodities waiting to be shipped.

"With the support from the local governments, we are able to focus on developing the market," Luo said.

"Just as Alibaba offers infrastructure for e-commerce, we'll provide infrastructure for the logistics industry. In the future, truckers simply need to drive, as we'll take care of all other things for them," he added.

According to Luo, the Guizhou-based company had 4.5 million registered vehicles by the end of April. It also boasts 880,000 corporate members, with business covering 90 percent of the counties in China. The firm expects to cover over 95 percent of the counties by the end of this year.

When I'd returned from the big data expo to Beijing, I heard more news on big data development in Guizhou.

British newspaper The Guardian cited the prophetic words of Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, in a report in July highlighting the rapid transformation of the province.

"If you have missed the opportunity in Guangdong or Zhejiang 30 years ago, by no means should you miss that of Guizhou today," Ma said.

(China Daily 10/20/2017 page12)