Artificial intelligence in many places is conducive to policy "blowout", and the digital economy has entered the blue ocean

China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Zhang Zhi reported from Beijing

"ChatGPT large model technology kicks off the prelude to general artificial intelligence, which will trigger changes in economic, social, cultural and other fields, and is expected to promote human society into the era of intelligent enhancement." At the just-concluded Zhongguancun Forum, Wu Zhaohui, vice minister of science and technology, spoke highly of artificial intelligence.

Since the landing of ChatGPT, the imagination space of artificial intelligence has entered a new era. From a global perspective, it is not difficult to see that since 2018, the development of the digital economy in major countries has accelerated. The data shows that the global median of the Global Digital Economy Development Index has begun to exceed the average. From the perspective of the development gap of countries, the gap between countries in the development of the digital economy has gradually narrowed. According to the recently released Digital China Development Report (2022), the scale of the mainland's digital economy will reach 50.2 trillion yuan in 2022, ranking second in the world in terms of total volume, accounting for 41.5% of GDP. China's advantages in the field of digital infrastructure have also continued to increase, ranking third in the world.

"With the rapid development of the digital economy, the mainland's data traffic has grown rapidly, and data resources have expanded rapidly, and it has become a veritable country of data resources." Wang Yiming, vice chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, told the China Times.

This year, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other places have issued relevant documents to promote the development of the artificial intelligence industry, which has further increased the construction of the mainland's digital economy and pressed the "accelerator button" for the development of the digital economy everywhere.

Not only that, at present, China is carrying out digital economy cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road" and digital economy cooperation in subdivided fields with leading countries in the development of digital economy.

According to forecasts, the digital economy will become a new field and competition track for international cooperation in the future. In the future, China's digital economy will further exert efforts in digital technology, digital infrastructure, digital market and digital governance.

Multi-place force

For the mainland, the development of the digital economy and the construction of a digital China are of great significance.

Wang Zhiqin, vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said at the Digital Economy Forum that the digital economy has become a key force driving the economic development of the mainland. At present, the proportion of industrial digitalization in industrial digitalization has increased significantly, and the digitalization of the service industry and industrial digitalization have become the "dual engines" driving the development of the digital economy. At the same time, the contribution of digital input to economic growth continues to rise, the main source of economic growth accelerates the transformation to digitalization, the efficiency of digital economy input and output has been improved by leaps and bounds, and the mainland digital economy has entered a new round of rapid development in both quantity and quality.

In order to seize this wave of digital transformation, first-tier cities took the lead in opening the policy floodgates, and in just two days, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen successively issued policy documents on supporting the artificial intelligence industry.

On May 31, Shenzhen issued the "Shenzhen Action Plan for Accelerating the High-quality Development of Artificial Intelligence (2023-2024)", coordinating the establishment of an artificial intelligence fund group with a scale of 100 billion yuan, coupled with the "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Artificial Intelligence Industry Promotion Regulations" issued and implemented last year, Shenzhen has built a high-quality AI development policy system of "one regulation, one plan, one list, and one fund group", with sufficient computing power, high-quality industrial ecology and talent environment. Eighteen specific measures are proposed in six aspects: building a new generation of artificial intelligence computing power cluster supply, enhancing key core technologies and product innovation capabilities, improving the level of industrial agglomeration, creating full-time scenario applications in the whole region, strengthening the supply of data and talent elements, and safeguarding measures.

On May 30, Beijing issued two major policies to promote the development of the artificial intelligence industry, among which, the "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Construction of an Artificial Intelligence Innovation Source with Global Influence in Beijing (2023-2025)" proposed that by 2025, the scale of the core industry of artificial intelligence will reach 300 billion yuan, maintaining a continuous growth of more than 10%, and the scale of the radiation industry will exceed 1 trillion yuan; Another "Several Measures to Promote the Innovation and Development of General Artificial Intelligence in Beijing" puts forward 21 specific measures around five aspects: computing power, data, models, scenarios and supervision. According to the new policy, Beijing will accelerate the construction of an AI innovation source with global influence.

Prior to this, on May 25, the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission issued a notice on the issuance of "Several Policies and Measures to Increase Support for Private Investment and Development in Shanghai", which proposed to give full play to the guiding role of artificial intelligence innovation and development projects, and support private enterprises to widely participate in the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure such as data and computing power. Clearly expressed support for private enterprises to widely participate in the construction of artificial intelligence infrastructure such as data and computing power, extend the implementation period of the interest discount policy for new infrastructure projects until the end of 2027, and provide interest subsidies of up to 1.5 percentage points.

Not only the three first-tier cities are making synchronous efforts, but coastal provinces are also focusing on artificial intelligence and seizing the development highland of artificial intelligence through policy dividends.

Li Min, member of the party group and deputy director of the Department of Economy and Information Technology of Zhejiang Province, introduced that Zhejiang promotes the digital economy as the "No. 1 project", and the level of comprehensive digital development is leading the country, and in 2022, the scale of Zhejiang's digital economy will account for more than 50% of GDP, ranking first in the country. This year, Zhejiang proposed to implement the "No. 1 Development Project" of digital economy innovation and quality improvement with greater efforts, digital reform, and promote continuous innovation of digital economy systems and mechanisms.

In the eyes of industry insiders, artificial intelligence technology is being widely used in various fields, which will leverage and guide the optimal allocation of innovative resources such as enterprises and markets, and promote the upgrading and transformation of the industry.

The top-level design still needs to be strengthened

At present, mainland artificial intelligence has been widely used in urban management, finance, retail, manufacturing and many other fields, standing at the strategic height of building new national competitive advantages, mainland digital economy has played a vital role.

Wang Jianwei, first-level inspector of the Information Technology Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, introduced that at present, breakthroughs have been made in key projects such as big data technology research and development, integrated application, etc., and continue to stimulate the vitality of digital enterprise development. Data element application performance is accelerated. Data circulation and trading service platforms have emerged rapidly, the construction of big data exchanges has been solidly advanced, the construction of public data zones has continued to explore, and local pilot projects for data asset evaluation have been launched.

As of the end of March 2023, the penetration rate of digital R&D and design tools for enterprises was 77.6%, there were more than 240 influential industrial Internet platforms in the country, and more than 81 million key platform connected devices.

Tianyan inspection data also shows that up to now, there are nearly 2.731 million AI-related enterprises, of which more than 732,000 new registered enterprises will be registered in 2022, and the growth rate of newly registered enterprises will be nearly 41.4%; Among them, from January to May 2023, more than 232,000 new registered related enterprises, with an average growth rate of 66.7%.

However, in Wang Yiming's view, the rapid digital economy still needs to strengthen the construction of top-level systems.

"In order to give full play to the advantages of the mainland's data scale and data application and promote the orderly and healthy development of the digital economy, we must further promote the market-oriented reform of data elements, promote the efficient circulation and use of data, and empower the real economy." Wang Yiming said.

He suggested that new industrialization should be accelerated to promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy. Accelerate the establishment of market rules for data elements, and gradually improve basic systems such as data resource property rights, circulation transactions, and revenue distribution. Carry out in-depth digital transformation actions in the manufacturing industry and cultivate a data trading market. It is necessary to innovate the data property rights system and solve the problem of difficulty in confirming rights in data transactions. At the same time, it is necessary to establish a data circulation and transaction system to solve the problem of "unwilling, daring, and unable" trading data. Give better play to the role of market discovery prices, improve the price formation mechanism of data elements, improve valuation and pricing methods, and continuously expand the scale of data circulation and transactions.