Big data

According to the research institute Gartner, big data means high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective and innovative forms of information processing to enable enhanced insight, decision making, and process optimization.

The strategic significance of big data technology is not to master massive data information but to carry out specialized processing of that data. In other words, if big data is an industry, the key to profitability is to increase the “processing power” of the data so as to “add value” through “processing”.

From the technical point of view, the relationship between big data and cloud computing is as inseparable as the two sides of a coin. Big data cannot be processed by a single computer, and a distributed architecture must be employed. It features distributed data mining for mass data, which relies on cloud computing for distributed processing, distributed databases, cloud storage, and virtualization technologies.

The development of the digital economy is inseparable from emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. As information technology develops in depth, these external means supporting the digital economy will create higher demands for computing technology, which will have to be both fast and sound, both efficient and cost-effective. It will have to simultaneously face multiple challenges and have high-speed, high-quality, and cost-effectiveness. It will also need to be energy-saving and able to deal with diversified computing demands.

The industry policy and regulation system of China’s big data sector continued to improve and the development environment for digital economy centered on big data continued to be optimized in the first half of 2018. With the increasing popularity and deepening of the application of big data technology, the construction of China’s big data ecosystem is picking up speed, and the talent training mode has been innovating.

Currently, a total of 283 colleges and universities across the country have majors related to big data. The quality and quantity of the big data talent supply in China will be improved substantially with the diversified development of the training methods of big data talents and the continuous improvement of training capability and levels.

Excellent big data products and application solutions continued to emerge in the second half of 2018 in China. The service supply capacity of the leading enterprises and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in big data applications will improve, and new models and formats for the transformation of traditional industries driven by big data will emerge. At the same time, with the integration of big data and other new technologies, including the internet of things, cloud computing and artificial intelligence, new applications of multi-technology integration will be found.