China's digital industry clusters power growth

China's digital industry clusters have gained momentum as the country's digital economy continues its rapid growth. Over 60 percent of China's 25 advanced manufacturing clusters are digital economy-related, according to statistics of the China Center for Information Industry Development, People's Daily reported on Wednesday.

As per the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy, the added value of the core industries in the digital economy accounted for 7.8 percent of GDP in 2020, and it is expected to increase to 10 percent by 2025.

The added value of the core industry of the digital economy in 2020 was about 7.9 trillion yuan ($1.11 trillion), as China's GDP was verified as 101.36 trillion yuan in 2020, said Gao Yingmai, director of the Digital Economy Strategy Research Office of CCID.

The intelligent voice industry cluster in Hefei, Anhui province, led by AI technology company iFlyteck, registered prime operating revenue at 137.8 billion yuan in 2021. The 1,423 enterprises of the cluster posted a growth of over 30 percent in output value for five consecutive years, according to the report.

The digital security industry cluster in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, led by Dahua Technology and Hikvision Digital Technology, witnessed a 17.2 percent yearly growth in core industry operation revenue at 272.08 billion yuan in 2021.

The optoelectronic information industry cluster in Wuhan, Hubei province, led by Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable Joint Stock Ltd Co and HGTECH, with total investment exceeding 200 billion yuan during the past three years, owns more than 15,000 optoelectronic enterprises currently.

Realizing network collaborative R&D and production through platforms and gradually getting rid of the constraints of geographical space is the biggest difference between digital industrial cluster and the traditional industrial cluster, Gao said.

Fan Qiuci, an expert at the Industry Research Center of AliResearch Institute, said digital industry clusters can realize coordination in R&D, orders, production, quality, inventory and services, form a closed loop of business coordination through digital connection of various systems, and stabilize and power the industrial and supply chain.

The development of digital economy, as well as the deep integration of digital economy and real economy, as well as the building of digital industry clusters with international competitiveness are highlighted in the report to the 20th CPC National Congress.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will also make efforts in digital industrialization, industrial digitalization and data value, and build digital industry clusters with international competitiveness, the report said.

In digital industrialization, China will accelerate the development of 5G, integrated circuits, intelligent connected vehicles, industrial robots, basic software and industrial software. It will also encourage the cluster development of emerging industries such as cloud computing, big data, industrial Internet, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.

In industrial digitalization, the country will create new products, new business forms and new models represented by smart agriculture, smart manufacturing, smart logistics, digital finance and digital commerce. It will also actively explore digital application scenarios such as intelligent Internet-connected vehicles, smart mines and telemedicine.

The country will also accelerate the construction of national integrated big data center system, and give full play to the role of eight national computing hub nodes and 10 national data center clusters.

Relying on more than 40 data trading institutions in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhengzhou, China will actively explore new business forms and models of data circulation and trading, the report said.