China's strategy will spark global innovation

Harry Shum, executive vice-president of Microsoft's Technology and Research group, delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the seventh China US Internet Industry Forum held on Dec 2, 2014 in Washington. [Photo/people.cn]

"Brand-new business models and online user behaviors are happening in China that never happened in mature markets like the United States or western European countries," said Harry Shum, executive vice-president of Microsoft's Technology and Research group, at the seventh China US Internet Industry Forum that began on Tuesday in Washington.

According to Shum, an entire generation of people has now grown up on mobile platforms in China, who are connecting to cloud and using cloud services, and the data analytics and assistance that the services provide.

He joined Microsoft Research in 1996 as a researcher in Redmond, Washington. In 1998 he moved to Beijing as one of the founding members of Microsoft Research China, later renamed Microsoft Research Asia.

"This is really accelerating the pace of technology adoption."

"I researched about some of the online e-commerce data on Nov 11, the biggest online shopping day in China. What was shocking to me was six out of 10 of the top search items on search engine or browsers were actually related to clothing and buying clothes. This is really incredible," said Shum.

The world's best online shopping tools, apps or websites for clothing will come from China in the coming months and years, he said.

"I am very optimistic about the innovation of mobile first or cloud computing first strategy in China and how that will spark innovations globally," said Shum.

During the speech at the opening ceremony of the forum, he also summarized the core issues that will be discussed in the meeting such as challenges of cybercrime on privacy, continuing to increase access to the Internet and social networking and the appropriate treatment for its content.

Lu Wei, minister of State Internet Information Office, delivered a speech titled "Enhancing Trust in Communication, Creating Win-Win through Cooperation" during the forum.

According to Lu, the Sino-US relation on the Internet issue is now an important component of the new model of major power relationship between the two countries and will decide the future of both countries to a great extent.

"We should see that consensus and cooperation are the main streams. Not only should we seek the common grounds in spite of differences, but also make joint progress based on the common grounds," he said.

He noted that differences should not be obstacles. "It is precisely through these differences that we can complement each other and create all kinds of possibilities for cooperation and mutual benefits," he said.

Catherine Novelli, US under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and environment, said the United States and China should cooperate and are cooperating as the two countries share common interests on cyber issues.

The two-day forum, co-hosted by Internet Society of China and Microsoft Corporation, drew over 150 government officials, industry leaders and academics to discuss the prospects of cooperation on cyber issue between the two countries.