Visitors interact with a commercial robot at the fourth World Internet Conference-the Light of Internet Expo held in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, from Dec. 2 to 6, 2017. (XINHUA)

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In China there is palpable excitement about the emerging fields of big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and shared economy, but there is a looming challenge of uneven technological implementation within different sectors, experts said.

“At present, China’s digital economic development is uneven. The performance of e-commerce, inclusive finance and sharing economy ranks high in the international arena, whereas in agricultural and industrial sectors, the application of technology is rather insufficient,” said Chen Jin, a professor of the School of Information Technology and Management at the University of International Business and Economics.

In recent years, the share of the digital economy in GDP has grown. According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology 2017 report, in 2016, China’s digital economy reached $3.8 trillion, accounting for 30 percent of GDP.

Guo Weidong, a professor from the College of Business Administration at Capital University of Economics and Business, said that digital economy has provided college graduates a broader field in which to launch start-ups because it breaks the boundaries of traditional industries and facilitates the development of new ones. It also creates a new growth point, which in turn would spawn more businesses and push China’s economy to realize a comprehensive digitalization, Guo said.

Cai Yuezhou, a research fellow from the Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the digital transformation of China’s economy is an inevitable choice against the backdrop of the new round of the global scientific, technological and industrial revolution, and it is also an important pillar on which to build a modern economic system.

At the same time, digital technology is at the core of the technological system, so it is predictable that the industrial chain and scale centering on digital technology will continue to expand in the future, Cai added.

Chen said the key of China’s digital economy transformation lies in the promotion of core technology competitiveness and the efficiency of social economic development.

Based on the application of digital technology, represented by big data and smart technology, China should strive to achieve high-quality economic growth by realizing the integration and innovation of agricultural, industrial and service sectors, the optimization of economic structure, the improvement of product quality, the balance of demand and production, the reduction of cost and the efficient social economy development, Chen noted.

Cai said going forward, the development of digital economy should focus on the following aspects. First, deepening reform in the science and technology sector will allow more leading enterprises to reap the benefits of digital technology.

Second, grasping the opportunities presented by large-scale commercialization of 5G will help make a layout in advance from infrastructure, industrial chain, to core technology.

Third, government agencies need to take the initiative to proactively adapt to new businesses and adjust the regulation admittance rules in time on the premise of managing the risks.
Finally, policymakers need to look ahead to the future and prepare for large-scale technological unemployment that could result from the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and smart manufacturing.

 

(edited by YU HUI)