Reforms to further push digital China

China will ratchet up resources to deepen reforms related to the market-oriented allocation of data elements and facilitate the high-quality development of both the digital economy and digital society, as part of a broader push to advance the building of a "Digital China", the country's top data governance regulator said on Monday.

Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Administration, said that 21 policy documents have been published concerning data property rights, circulation and transaction, revenue distribution and security governance, to establish the basic systems for data since 2024.

According to Liu, the transaction scale of China's data market exceeded 160 billion yuan ($22.06 billion) last year, up more than 30 percent year-on-year, while the nation's total data output is expected to have risen by more than 20 percent in 2024 compared to a year earlier.

China's added value of core industries of the digital economy accounted for about 10 percent of GDP last year, Liu said.

Liu made the remarks at a news conference for the 8th Digital China Summit, which is scheduled to be held in Fuzhou, Fujian province, from April 29 to 30. More than 800 entrepreneurs, 30 academicians, as well as experts and scholars will attend the summit.

The two-day summit, which will focus on showcasing the latest achievements of the Digital China initiative, will feature an opening ceremony, the main forum, over 20 sub-forums and a digital innovation competition, with an on-site experience area set up.

Liu also stressed the significance of high-quality data in bolstering the application of fast-evolving artificial intelligence technology and industry-specific large language models.

More efforts should be made to advance the construction of computing power infrastructure, press ahead with the mega data project dubbed the "east-data-west-computing", step up the supply of high-quality data and boost the circulation and transaction of data elements to contribute to the nation's AI Plus initiative, Liu added.

By the end of this year, new computing power in major computing hubs will account for more than 60 percent of the country's total, and the use of green electricity is expected to exceed 80 percent, he noted.

Wang Yongli, executive vice-governor of Fujian province, said the province will make greater efforts to develop core digital industries, emerging and future-oriented industries, including integrated circuits, network communications, new-generation displays, artificial intelligence and quantum communication.

Ouyang Rihui, assistant dean of the China Center for Internet Economy Research at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said deepened reforms related to the market-oriented allocation of data should fully unleash the value and potential of massive data resources in 2025.