Big data based future

In a congratulatory letter to the China International Big Data Industry Expo that opened in Guiyang, Guizhou province, on Saturday, President Xi Jinping said China upholds "innovative, coordinated, green, open and sharing" principles in implementing its national big data strategy.

The rapid development of new-generation information technologies has had a significant and far-reaching impact on social and economic development, State governance and people's lives, and the national big data strategy being implemented by China will facilitate the country's economic transformation from high-speed growth to high-quality development, Xi said.

He called for strengthened international exchanges and cooperation in the development of the big data sector.

Xi's remarks fully demonstrate that China, as the world's largest market, attaches great importance to the internet, information technologies and the big data industry whose booming development is playing an increasingly important role in fueling economic growth. In 2017, China's digital economy accounted for 27.2 trillion yuan ($4.3 trillion), 32.9 percent of its gross domestic product, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

If the progress of human civilization is marked by technological breakthroughs, it is surely driven by the explosive development of information technologies, the internet and big data in the 21st century.

Since it launched its national big data strategy in 2015, China has introduced a series of guideline documents and measures to promote its feasible implementation and some substantial progress has been made. China knows that in an age when information has become an important factor of production and a key resource for national competition, any country who gains advantages in big data will gain an upper hand over its competitors. This is why Xi puts great emphasis on China's need to make core technological breakthroughs in this field.

Informationalization offers rare opportunities for China's further development, but whether it can grasp such opportunities hinges on whether it can effectively implement the national big data strategy to promote the building of its digital economy and nurture a new engine for its economic development.