This year's government work report proposes to carry out infrastructure investment in a moderately advanced manner around the major national strategic deployment and the "14th Five-Year Plan"; build digital information infrastructure, promote the large-scale application of 5G, promote the digital transformation of the industry, and develop smart cities and digital villages. "Digital information infrastructure" is often seen as an important part of China's "new infrastructure" and has become the direction of local governments in the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Moderately advanced infrastructure investment can not only drive economic and social change, but also inject new momentum into sustainable economic development. In 2020, "new infrastructure" was written into the government work report for the first time, and accelerating the construction of new infrastructure, as a major decision-making deployment made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, is also an important task specified in the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan, which is of great significance for promoting the development of the mainland's digital economy and scientific and technological self-reliance.
Xu Hongcai, executive director of the China Policy Science Research Association and deputy director of the Economic Policy Committee, said in an interview with the media that in the medium and long term, there are huge investment opportunities in the field of new infrastructure. Investment will continue to be the "ballast stone" for the smooth operation of the economy in 2022. At the same time, infrastructure investment will provoke the beam of domestic demand, and new infrastructure and old infrastructure will play a role together. Some experts believe that "new infrastructure" has become an important starting point for consolidating the foundation of the development of the digital economy and expanding effective investment, and it is estimated from the three major fields of 5G, data centers and artificial intelligence that the scale of investment this year is about 221 billion yuan.
Li Yanhong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman and CEO of Baidu, pointed out that the new infrastructure with artificial intelligence as the core will become a new driving force for high-quality economic development. He said that China's intelligent industry has ushered in a rare opportunity for great development. The new infrastructure advocated by the state is being carried out in an orderly manner everywhere, and these new infrastructure will become a huge driving force for China's economic growth in the future. With the blessing of digital intelligent technology, all walks of life, including medical health, industrial manufacturing, education, finance, transportation and so on, will be fundamentally changed.
In fact, the promotion path of intelligent transportation in the mainland reflects the concept of moderate advancement. In the past many years, China's highway construction has been adhering to the principle of moderate advancement, that is, when the highway was just built, the traffic flow was not high. For such a new road, we can open up a special channel for unmanned vehicles, and gradually cultivate and stimulate the technology and product landing of unmanned freight vehicles. When the market demand is strong enough, expand to other busier highways. This can solve the problem of whether unmanned vehicles and unmanned vehicles are "chickens first" or "eggs first".
In the context of a strong transportation country, building a smart highway has become a consensus, but how to build, how to use, how to manage, all need to be based on the present, focus on the long term. Among them, the forward-looking layout of smart high-speed is particularly critical. For example, on the eve of the scale of smart cars equipped with autonomous driving technology on the road, smart high-speed should be prepared in advance for "smart cars", which is also in line with the principle of "moderately advanced construction of infrastructure" advocated by the state. Only by building infrastructure that is moderately advanced can we win opportunities in the new round of change, so that new technologies, new models and new products can better develop in the direction of industrialization, marketization and scale.
At present, China's intelligent transportation construction is at the forefront of the world. At present, the Beijing-Xiongxiong Expressway from Beijing to Xiong'an has built the country's first L2 to L4 level of autonomous driving lanes. From 2021 onwards, Baidu began to implement and promote the concept of "intelligent transportation operator" in many places in China. Huangpu District of Guangzhou took the lead in opening a new model of "intelligent transportation operator" in China and showed initial results. By establishing a smart priority system for trams, Baidu provided a solution that saved about 28% of the tram time per trip in Huangpu District, which was widely praised by the public.
With the continuous advancement of a new round of new infrastructure, the digital transformation of enterprises will also accelerate. It carries the basic platform of the digital transformation of China's manufacturing industry, the Industrial Internet, and is the market pioneer of new infrastructure. As a characteristic professional platform selected by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Baidu Intelligent Cloud Kaiwu Industrial Internet Platform has promoted industrial transformation and upgrading with the technical advantages of "Cloud-Wisdom Integration", and in less than a year, it has established cooperation with more than 300 enterprises in more than 18 industries such as 3C, automobile, equipment manufacturing, steel, chemical industry, and water affairs. At present, Baidu Kaiwu has formed new formats and models that can be copied and promoted, and has landed in Chongqing, Suzhou, Quanzhou, Tongxiang, Guangzhou, etc., providing support for the intelligent upgrading of thousands of industries and helping localities form competitive industrial clusters.
It is worth noting that the energy consumption and carbon emissions of new digital infrastructure cannot be ignored. Data centers are one of the new infrastructure infrastructures. Under the guidance of the "3060 double carbon" goal, Baidu on the one hand develops green computing power, using technology to optimize processes and reduce data center energy consumption; on the other hand, it develops greener algorithms, builds a large model of green intensification, and improves the energy efficiency ratio of infrastructure. As an industry representative that actively discloses carbon emissions information and fulfills its commitment to low-carbon operations, Baidu is one of only two Chinese companies in the MSCI Net Zero Emissions Report, and its Yangquan data center has been awarded carbon neutral data center leader (5A level) certification. In addition, the average annual PUE of all Baidu's self-built data centers is 1.14, and the industry average is 1.59. Operating the same IT equipment compared to the industry average, Baidu can meet the annual electricity consumption of more than 230,000 Chinese residents by reducing the 181.6 million kWh of electricity saved by reducing PUE per year.
New infrastructure has always been one of the key driving forces for structural adjustment and innovation. Some experts pointed out that "new infrastructure" can not only create a large number of investment opportunities and enhance development momentum in the short and medium term, but also accelerate the landing of the intelligent economy and the arrival of the intelligent society. From the social level, the threshold for entrepreneurship has been lowered, the speed of innovation has accelerated, production efficiency has increased, and people will usher in a richer life.