[kunming tiger]

China to build data center for industrial internet
China will build a national data center for the industrial internet and strengthen the supervision and coordination of overseas listings of Chinese industrial internet companies, the nation's top industry regulator said.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a 2020 work plan on Friday that it will step up efforts to encourage the construction of a batch of industrial internet data centers across China as part of its broader push to accelerate an industrial upgrade.
The work plan said the ministry will continue its goal of encouraging 400,000 enterprises to adopt cloud services and to use industrial internet platforms to do research and development, design, manufacturing, management and other services.
The ministry also aims to promote cooperation between telecom companies and industrial enterprises so the latter can make better use of 5G technologies to upgrade their private industrial network.
The move came after official data showed that more than 70 industrial internet platforms with regional or sector-wide influence have emerged in China as of May.
Liu Duo, head of the government think tank the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, said the industrial internet is being increasingly used in manufacturing, healthcare, energy, smart ports and other sectors in China.
"Manufacturing has seen the most application scenarios, including using the technology to automatically collect industrial information and conduct remote control operations, video surveillance and product quality testing," Liu said.
She said about 20 percent of 5G applications will be consumer-oriented, and 80 percent of its commercial potential lies in its use in traditional sectors.
"As a result, the combination of 5G and the industrial internet will be of greater importance to the nation's push for large-scale industrial upgrade," Liu added.
The industrial internet refers to the convergence of industrial systems with the power of advanced computing, analytics, sensing and new levels of connectivity.
It is a frontier where countries around the world are scrambling to establish a beachhead and it is an essential part of China's industrial upgrade drive by boosting the marriage between cutting-edge digital technologies and the manufacturing sector.
China's State Council unveiled a guideline in November 2017 that aims to build three to five industrial internet platforms which will reach international standards by 2025 and lead the world in key areas by 2035.
The nation is working hard to lay out a primary cybersecurity system for the industrial internet by the end of 2020, with at least 20 innovative products and solutions developed as pilot projects to safeguard information security for areas which include the automotive, aerospace and energy sectors.
It is part of a plan to build a sound and complete cybersecurity system by 2025 to promote the development of the industrial internet in the country.
Qi Xiangdong, chairman of Chinese security company Qi An Xin Group, said in an earlier interview that compared with consumer internet applications such as e-commerce, the industrial internet is far more complex and vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks.
"Once the industrial internet is attacked by 'bad guys', it not only compromises information, but also harms the whole enterprise, or the entire industry," Qi said.





China to build data center for industrial internet - Chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Shanxi steps up efforts to develop big data industry
Shanxi steps up efforts to develop big data industry
By Zheng Yiran | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2020-07-24 17:47

A visitor touches an automated hand at an exhibition during the second CIIE in Shanghai on Nov 6, 2019. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/chinadaily.com.cn]
North China's Shanxi province is stepping up efforts to develop the big data industry, in a bid to constantly promote industrial structure adjustment and optimization, and to serve the development of new infrastructure, new technology, new material and new equipment.
Chindata Group, a Beijing-headquartered carrier-neutral hyperscale data center solution provider, has been building its next-generation hyperscale data centers in Shanxi ever since January 2018.
According to the company, its energy data industrial base in Datong, Shanxi province, now covers an area of 33.33 hectares, and the first and second phases of the project were put into operation in 2019. The third and fourth phases will come into service by the end of this year.
When the industrial base is completed, it will integrate the local power, network, communication and other basic resources to develop artificial intelligence, hybrid cloud computing, big data, offline computing, data mining and other businesses, the company said.
"We diligently develop our hyperscale data centers at strategic locations where energy, connectivity and clients' business demands intersect. In this way, we could help customers realize their business strategy together with the long-term goal of 'go green'," said Alex Ju, founder and chief executive officer of Chindata Group.
"We are dedicated to providing more cost-effective and resilient data center services for human development, and equipping emerging countries with 'late mover' advantages while maintaining our relationships with developed countries," he said.
The industrial base explores building a new mode combining renewable energy and data centers, and uses data to serve Beijing and Tianjin as well as the Xiong'an New Area in Hebei province, in order to promote the leapfrog development of a digital Shanxi, said the company.
In May, Shanxi issued a guideline on promoting the development and application of big data, by clarifying the responsibility of the government, specifying industrial policies and introducing supporting measures.
By doing so, big data can play a better role in strengthening emerging industries, promoting the intelligent development of society, and boosting high-quality transformational development.
Chindata Group recently will release its first annual environmental, social and governance (ESG) report, reporting the company's commitments and achievements in ESG performance for 2019, and presenting a comprehensive overview of its renewable energy commitment and energy efficiency.

Shanxi steps up efforts to develop big data industry

North China's Shanxi province is stepping up efforts to develop the big data industry, in a bid to constantly promote industrial structure adjustment and optimization, and to serve the development of new infrastructure, new technology, new material and new equipment.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Refinitiv sees room for better growth
By Zhou Lanxu | China Daily | Updated: 2020-08-19 09:20

The Refinitiv logo is seen on a web page of a computer screen at offices in London, Britain, Aug 1, 2019. [Photo/Agencies]
Global financial data provider Refinitiv said on Tuesday that its proposed $27 billion merger with the London Stock Exchange will create more opportunities for foreign investors to access the huge market in China, a top company official said.
"We are certain that Asia and China will be the major growth areas for the company after the acquisition," said Nicole Chen, managing director of Refinitiv in China.
Refinitiv and the LSE are committed to completing the deal by the end of the year as scheduled and it would be the first between a well-known stock exchange and a data provider, Chen told China Daily in an interview.
Refinitiv plans to be the world's largest financial infrastructure provider in terms of revenue after the LSE deal and will look to enrich its China-related product portfolio after the deal as both parties see the Chinese market as "strategically important", she said.
With China's financial market becoming far more open in recent years, overseas investors' demand for market data from the country has also surged, creating a major business opportunity for Refinitiv, Chen said, adding that overseas users are the biggest users of its China Market Analysis application.
The company's optimism on the Chinese market stems from the stock connect between the London and Shanghai bourses that was established last year. The Shanghai-London Stock Connect enables companies to float shares on both exchanges simultaneously via a depository receipt mechanism, a milestone in China's accelerated financial opening-up.
Refinitiv invested a lot to enrich its databases for the Chinese market as it expects the robust demand to continue. It added 350,000 pieces of data last year to its Datastream product to provide macroeconomic data from China to the county level, said Chen.
"Having access to specially designed, comprehensive databases and analytics that are specific to the Chinese market is crucial for the survival of foreign institutions. Refinitiv is well positioned in providing such data given its rich reserve of China market data and experience in serving global clients," Chen said.
Formerly the financial and risk business of Thomson Reuters, the company serves more than 40,000 institutions in approximately 190 countries and is usually seen as a rival to Bloomberg.
Refinitiv will continue to diversify the usage scenarios of Chinese market data and develop related databases or applications, catering to the rapidly changing data demand, Chen said.
Chen said there are new growth points for Refinitiv China in areas like wealth management and asset management, given the growing group of high net worth individuals in the country, on top of traditional service lines like foreign exchange and fixed income.
Chen said investors in China are paying "systemically higher "attention to investments based on environmental, social, and governance factors, especially since the COVID-19 outbreak.
The commitment of Refinitiv to the Chinese market reflects the country's attractiveness for foreign investment as an economy that has staged a steady economic recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic and has furthered opening-up efforts despite the epidemic, said Liu Chunsheng, an associate professor of international trade at the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing.

Refinitiv sees room for better growth

Global financial data provider Refinitiv said on Tuesday that its proposed $27 billion merger with the London Stock Exchange will create more opportunities for foreign investors to access the huge market in China, a top company official said.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Winners and losers of 'pandemic economy'
By Michael Spence | China Daily | Updated: 2020-09-23 07:55

[Photo/Agencies]
Much economic commentary nowadays focuses on "divergence". While broad equity market indexes are at or near all-time highs, much of the wider economy struggles to recover from one of the most severe downturns ever.
Many have concluded that the market is unmoored from economic reality. But, viewed another way, today's equity markets may be partly reflecting powerful underlying trends amplified by the "pandemic economy". Equity prices and market indexes are measures of value creation for the owners of capital, which is not the same thing as value creation in the economy, more broadly, where labor and tangible and intangible capital all play a role.
Also, markets reflect the expected real returns to capital in the future. When it comes to measuring the present value of labor income, there simply is no comparable forward-looking index. In principal, then, if there is a significant anticipated economic rebound, the outlooks for capital and labor income could be similar, but only capital's expected future would be reflected in the present.
But there is more to the story. Market valuations are increasingly based on intangible assets, not least the ownership and control of data, which confers its own means of value creation and monetization. According to one recent study of the S&P 500, stocks in companies with high levels of intangible capital per employee have recorded the biggest gains this year, and the less intangible capital per employee companies have, the worse their stocks have performed.
In other words, incremental value creation in markets and employment are diverging. And while this was true even before the novel coronavirus pandemic, the trend has accelerated now. There are at least two reasons for this. One is the rapid adoption of digital technologies as part of the response to lockdown measures. The second is that many labor-intensive sectors (which normally add value mainly with labor and tangible capital) have been partly or totally shut down due to lockdowns, social distancing, and consumer risk aversion.
To be sure, general market valuations have been supported by the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks' interest rate policies. In the current context, highly accommodative monetary policies are principally aimed at creating space for governments to use debt to finance large fiscal programs in response to the COVID-19 shock.
But while ultra-low interest rates may provide some general support for today's market valuations, they do not account for the stark differences across sectors. After all, the part of the economy not represented by publicly traded stocks is also suffering (though there are private companies in digital sectors whose valuations and returns are similar to, or even higher than, the upper end of the intangible capital spectrum in public markets).
More broadly, lower-income households and many small businesses with thin, fragile balance sheets have been left with no effective shock absorbers, and many of the labor-intensive sectors that generate significant employment in normal times (including hotels, restaurants and bars) have been partly shut down. To address these trends, sovereign balance sheets are being used as a shock absorber for large swaths of the economy.
But not all swaths. Because the current crisis is actually boosting the value of certain companies, it is worth asking who owns the bulk of their stock. It certainly isn't the private households and businesses whose balance sheets are too weak to serve as shock absorbers. Today's high-valuation companies are owned by individuals and institutions with balance sheets that are already substantial enough to provide a cushion of economic resilience.
When the post-pandemic phase comes into view, labor-intensive sectors with lower intangible capital per employee may enjoy a period of out-performance as they bounce back. Yet even in this scenario, the economy's digital footprint is likely to expand, and the underlying trend favoring intangible capital and its owners will continue.
It is not surprising that intangible-capital-intensive sectors would have an advantage. For the most part, their cost structures are abnormally tilted toward fixed costs and low or negligible marginal costs. This makes some platforms massively scalable, which in turn confers significant power in terms of pricing and market access.
One could draw a few conclusions from these economic realities. For starters, the "pandemic economy" has accelerated the pre-pandemic trend favoring intangible asset value creation through enterprises with relatively fewer employees. We can expect this trend to continue, albeit not at the heightened pandemic-induced pace. Traditional businesses will recover, but the disconnect between value creation across enterprises depending on intangibles per employee will persist and remain a major economic and social challenge.
The idea that markets and the economy are diverging reflects a narrow focus on particular indexes. But no single index can offer a useful summary of the overall market, let alone economic conditions and trends. And in the "pandemic economy", equity market indexes obscure even more than they otherwise would, due to the large divergences in economic outcomes across sectors and for the people who work in them.
Finally, given the outsized contribution of digital intangible assets to value creation, it is hard to see a way to reverse the trend of rising wealth inequality. Because the balance sheets of those lower down the income and wealth ladder are largely devoid of assets with high intangible and digital content, the rewards of current economic and technological dynamics will pass them by.

Winners and losers of 'pandemic economy'

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Western Digital to expand further as data application segment rises
Western Digital, the US-based data storage solution provider, is banking on the rapid growth of data application services for further expansion in China, according to a senior company executive.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on businesses across the world, China has the capability to move faster than others and the widespread adoption of data services is a huge boon for the company, said Steven Craig, senior vice-president and general manager for China and the Asia-Pacific region at Western Digital.
"We see China as one of the fastest growing markets in the world," he said."A lot of the applications in the Chinese market tend to be pushing the boundaries, pushing the edge a lot more."
He made the remarks as the company unveiled latest generation of data center solutions that enable applications and workloads that require maximum throughput, low latency and enterprise-grade reliability.
According to Craig, due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the amount of data that are getting stored and used has risen sharply along with the capabilities to access the data.
"I do believe that artificial intelligence, machine learning and virtual reality are all ahead in the China market compared with the rest of the world. They have been adopted much faster," he said.
Western Digital's solutions serve to exert a great impact on enterprises and what they can do with data, particularly for real-time analytics, the internet of things and emerging technologies.
"Things they need the most from us are a continuity of supply, reliable and high-quality products, and products at competitive prices. It is always necessary to have competitive pricing," he said.
With manufacturing facilities in Shanghai and Shenzhen, Craig called China one of the company's key markets and said Western Digital remained committed to keeping its core functions in the country.
"Moving to other regions of the world, you might have the infrastructure challenges in the setup and lack of knowledge," he said."We have a very technical product, and there is a very solid workforce here. We have trained, we have got a lot of our engineering talent here... so we plan to keep our core functions here in China."
Consultancy Omdia forecast the global external data storage market will expand to $78 billion in 2024, rising at a 12 percent compound annual growth rate from $45 billion in 2019.
Notably, the Asia-Pacific region continues to grow driven by demand from enterprises and Chinese communications service providers for storage products.
"The uptick in APAC vendor revenue in the second half of 2019 was driven by enterprises and Chinese communications service providers taking advantage of favorable government economic policies and the easing of trade tensions," said Dennis Hahn, principal analyst at Omdia.

Western Digital to expand further as data application segment rises

Western Digital, the US-based data storage solution provider, is banking on the rapid growth of data application services for further expansion in China, according to a senior company executive.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Asia's largest single data center opens in Shanxi
By ZHENG YIRAN | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2020-10-26 14:53

Zhang Jifu (right), secretary of the Datong Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, congratulates the opening of the largest single data center in Asia on Oct 25, 2020. [Photo provided to China Daily]
The largest single data center in Asia, located in Datong, North China's Shanxi province, went into operation on Sunday, marking China's latest achievement in information technology.
The center, built by Chindata Group, supports artificial intelligence-based computing power basic services. It is based in Chindata's energy data industrial base in Datong, namely Taihang Mountain Energy and Information Technology Industrial Campus of the Pan-Beijing Area, and has an IT volume of 50 megawatts - Asia's highest level for a single data center.
Zhang Jifu, secretary of the Datong municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, said: "The opening of the data center is of great importance to boosting Datong's energy information technology development. Chindata's energy data industrial base, where the data center is based, is a strategic project in Datong. Currently, the industrial base is taking shape. It is injecting strong impetus to the city's development of new infrastructure, new technology, new material and new equipment."
"The company should seize opportunities to make full use of the integration of data center and renewable energy, to turn Datong's advantage in energy to the advantage in strategic newly emerged industries," he added.
On the same day, Chindata and the Datong government signed an investment agreement of another data center in Chindata's energy data industrial base. With a total investment of 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion), the next-generation hyperscale data center, which covers 500 mu (33.3 hectares), will be further expanded, to support the tremendous computing power demand in AI, automatic drive and quantum communication.
Chindata's energy data industrial base in Datong was established in 2018. According to the company, the planning area of the industrial base is 2,500 mu, and there are a total of seven phases of the construction project. The first and second phases of the project were put into operation in 2019. The third and fourth phases will come into service by the end of this year.
The company said when the seven phases are all put into operation, the industrial base in Datong, together with the company's hyperscale data zones in Beijing and Hebei, will form an integrated data aggregation. The aggregation will effectively meet the digital demands from Beijing and Tianjin as well as the Xiong'an New Area in Hebei province.

Asia's largest single data center opens in Shanxi

The largest single data center in Asia, located in Datong, North China's Shanxi province, went put into operation on Sunday, marking China's latest achievement in information technology.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

China's largest data backup center starts operating
2020-11-13
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A ceremony to mark the operation of the Inner Mongolia Government Affairs Cloud Big Data Disaster Backup Center is held on Nov 11. [Photo/people.cn]
The Inner Mongolia Government Affairs Cloud Big Data Disaster Backup Center was completed on schedule and officially began operations on Nov 11 in Ulaanqab city, after a one-year construction period.
The center is a big data disaster recovery backup facility. Its main function is to provide convenient, safe and environmentally friendly long-term data storage and disaster recovery backups for the government, for archives, as well as for the finance, medical, petroleum and various other industries.
The center has a data storage capacity of 23 PB -- or Petabytes -- making it the largest of its kind in China.
It also has a storage capacity for up to a century, with unique advantages and advanced features such as non-tampering protocols, anti-electromagnetic radiation functions, low operating costs, as well as energy saving and environmental protection.
"Users in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei are connected to the center through a dedicated line,” said Jiang Yong, general manager of Inner Mongolia Zhonghong Zijing Technology Co, operator of the center.
"It is a complete dedicated line transmission and is not connected to the internet, which can ensure data security and long-term effectiveness to the greatest extent, Jiang added.
Moving forwards, the center will be further expanded, with a Blu-ray storage capacity of up to 4,000 PB.
A leading domestic production line for Blu-ray storage media and systems will also be built, to produce 8 million Blu-ray discs annually.
As a city built on basalt, Ulannqab has the advantages of a stable geological structure, vast land area and cold natural climate. It also has abundant wind power and solar power resources, as well as dual-circuit optical cables running directly to Beijing.
Ulaanqab Mayor Fei Dongbin said it was an ideal site for data disaster recovery centers.

China's largest data backup center starts operating

The Inner Mongolia Government Affairs Cloud Big Data Disaster Backup Center was completed on schedule and officially began operations on Nov 11 in Ulaanqab.

innermongolia.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Biden Risks Ceding Asia's Digital Oil to China
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Now that Asia has stitched together the world’s biggest trading bloc, U.S. financial and tech firms ought to be more than a little worried.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, will bind the 10 economies of Southeast Asia with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, creating a prototype of what my colleague David Fickling describes as “a sort of Pax Sinica,” a Beijing-led global order.
To provide a counterweight, the U.S. needs the Trans-Pacific Partnership. President Donald Trump backed out four years ago.(1) Japan is keen for Joe Biden, as the next president, to reverse the exit. But the goal of a U.S. pivot to Asia can’t solely be to encircle China. The objective must be to establish rules for ownership and use of Asian consumers’ financial and e-commerce data, a commodity that is set to become more valuable in this century than perhaps even oil was in the last.
The main risk to U.S. firms from Washington’s isolationism isn’t trade. Both as the world’s consumer of last resort and provider of the currency in which most things are bought and sold, the U.S. might retain enough leverage on global commerce. It can offer bilateral deals to important trading partners who’ll jump at the chance of getting easier access to the American market. But multilateral agreements like TPP are useful for establishing standards. That’s important when those are sorely lacking, which is the case for data, the raw material that consumers in Asia provide for free to the likes of Visa Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc., as well as to Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.
Take the agreement on financial services in the new trade deal. It says that signatory nations will not prevent “transfers of data by electronic or other means, necessary for the conduct of the ordinary business of a financial service supplier in its territory.” However, in the two subsequent paragraphs, we learn that countries can still insist on local copies of records. They can also restrict cross-border transfers that flout their regulations on “personal data, personal privacy, and the confidentiality of individual records.”
Ditto for electronic commerce: There are rules, but with broad escape hatches. A shopping website can freely send data overseas, and it won’t be required to maintain servers in the countries where it’s doing business. All of that can change if there’s a “legitimate public policy objective” or an “essential security interest.” If that wasn’t vague enough, e-commerce will only be brought under the RCEP’s proposed dispute settlement mechanism after a review. It’s a formula for endless delay, and even then, will only apply to countries that accept external adjudication.
Anti-free-trade groups like bilaterals.org have noted that TPP’s stricter digital trade rules would have won more ironclad guarantees for dominant tech companies. The RCEP has put a brake on that by tilting power back toward governments.
But from a globalization perspective, this is America’s retreat from its historic standards-setting role in everything from accounting to food safety, a development that worries scholars like Evan Feigenbuam at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Silicon Valley firms should also be nervous. Their business model is to sell access to processed information — and its predictive power — again and again.
As Columbia Law School professor Katharina Pistor argues in her paper, “Rule by Data: The End of Markets?”, Big Tech treats raw information as “wild animals: things that belong to no one but can be claimed by whoever catches them first.” This lawlessness can’t last. Governments are threatening to wield the stick, at least against the more egregious use of market power that comes from owning data. The European Union is investigating whether Amazon uses sales records of independent sellers to give an unfair advantage to its own retail arm. Potential fines can be as high as 10% of annual sales.
Being in the driving seat of an accord like the TPP means that the U.S. can help write the rules. The diplomatic goal would be to strike a bargain: force U.S. tech and financial services firms to share a part of their supersize profit from algorithms with consumers both at home and overseas, while ensuring that trading partners don’t put arbitrary curbs on access, storage, transfer and processing of raw data. Should Washington not want to shoulder this responsibility, Beijing gladly will. Maybe not today, but in 10 years. And those rules, which will come into effect by closing (or not closing) the escape hatches of the RCEP, would be shared by 2.2 billion people. They would hardly favor U.S. interests.
The cheerleaders of globalization obsessed over tariffs and non-tariff barriers and didn’t pay enough attention to the supply-chain revolution, most notably in China. To continue to view the world of trade from this outdated prism would once again cause the woods to be missed for the trees. Biden needs to bring the U.S. back to Asia, and for the right reason.
(1) TPP was then modifiedto Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), a free trade agreement between Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies and financial services. He previously was a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews. He has also worked for the Straits Times, ET NOW and Bloomberg News.

https://au.yahoo.com/news/biden-risks-ceding-asias-digital-230002666.html

 

[kunming tiger]

China's first national big data lab established in Guiyang
chinadaily.com.cn| Updated: 2020-12-14Print

The National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data Application on Improving Government Governance Capabilities in Guiyang is approved by experts, becoming the first of its kind in China. [Photo/gog.cn]
Guiyang's National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data Application on Improving Government Governance Capabilities, which is the first of its kind in China, was recently completed and approved by experts.
The lab is a national-level innovation platform co-built by China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, Guizhou province and Guiyang city.
It has carried out technological research and application of government data collection and analysis, sharing and opening of government data, government security, intelligent decision making and risk analysis and prediction.
The lab has established a stimulation platform for government big data applications, created a national first-class research environment and attracted high-end talent in government big data applications.
The lab has achieved 46 key technological achievements through research and practice, developed about 10 intelligent systems, implemented several demonstration projects, and built independent intellectual property rights and standard procedures in government big data. It has also formed a collaborative innovation mechanism by bringing together enterprises, academia and research institutes.

China's first national big data lab established in Guiyang

Guiyang's National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data Application on Improving Government Governance Capabilities, which is the first of its kind in China, was recently completed and approved to open.

guizhou.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Big data indicates recovery in China's nighttime economy
Xinhua | Updated: 2020-12-24 14:54

A woman takes photos at a night market in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, on June 6. [Photo/Sipa]
SHANGHAI - Nighttime consumption in China has almost returned to last year's level, an index based on big data has shown.
The nighttime consumption recovery index has reached 92.6 this year, indicating the whole year's nighttime consumption is almost the same as last year, according to big data released by the China UnionPay Merchant Services Co Ltd (China UMS) on Wednesday.
The index is mainly based on the value of consumption between 6 pm on any given day and 6 am the following day, and a reading of 100 indicates the nighttime economy is at the level of the same period the previous year.
Respective readings of 102 and 104.5 in the third and fourth quarters show positive year-on-year growth for nighttime consumption throughout the second half of this year.
China's nighttime consumption volume in the first quarter dropped by over 40 percent year-on-year due to the outbreak of COVID-19, according to China UMS data. The volume began to rebound in the second quarter after infections waned following national efforts to battle the epidemic.
Night tourism, shopping and dining across the country witnessed the quickest recoveries, with respective consumption recovery index readings of 102.9, 99.4 and 97.7.
The consumption value of night shopping accounted for 24.1 percent of whole-day consumption this year, up 5.8 percentage points, and night dining accounted for 44.2 percent, up 11.3 percentage points.

Big data indicates recovery in China's nighttime economy

Nighttime consumption in China has almost returned to last year's level, an index based on big data has shown.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Guizhou nurses big data ambitions
By CHENG YU in Beijing and YANG JUN in Guiyang | China Daily | Updated: 2020-12-31 09:46

A time tunnel effect is displayed at Guizhou province's big data demonstration center in Guiyang. [Photo/Xinhua]
Southwest China's Guizhou province is intensifying its big data industry drive through the establishment of a new tech company based on Huawei's core Kunpeng processor.
The new company, Guizhou Yunshang Kunpeng Technology Co Ltd, will manufacture hardware based on Kunpeng technologies.
"Production capacity over the next few years of the new company will hit 1 million units, which will drive industrial output of several hundred billion yuan," said Li Xinyu, chairman of TalkWeb, Huawei's smart hardware producer.
Li told China Daily that the first batch of servers is expected to roll off the assembly line in March.
Industry insiders said the new firm is significant for Guizhou, not only due to the production of Kunpeng hardware, but also because it will form an ecosystem related to Kunpeng industries spanning infrastructure to applications.
"Developing Kunpeng's industrial ecosystem is the biggest new opportunity and the best vision for Guizhou to develop big data. It will be a key platform for Guizhou to boost its technological prowess," said Ma Ningyu, head of the province's big data bureau.
Guizhou aims to build itself into one of the largest big data clusters globally over the next few years and spur a new wave of growth in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Guian New Area, a national-level new urban area in Guizhou, plans to create a hub of 12 mega data centers and 4 million servers with a fixed-asset investment of over 40 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) by 2025.
"As the COVID-19 pandemic comes under better control in the country, Guiyang and Guian New Area will continue to leverage the digital economy to offer important engines for the upgrade and transformation of traditional industries," said Zhang Jibing, deputy director of the Guian New Area Administrative Committee.
"Guiyang and Guian New Area have unique advantages and conditions for the development of big data and have attracted many large and super large data centers to settle here. More efforts will be made to create a better environment for the development of big data in the future," Zhang said.
Nestled in a mountainous region, Guiyang and the Guian New Area provide major engines of growth for the region. The region has been transformed in the past few years into an innovation hub as major global companies such as Apple, Huawei and Alibaba Group have arrived in the area.
Last year, over 100 big data projects worth some 21.6 billion yuan were introduced to Guiyang, capital of Guizhou. The city's software and information technology revenue exceeded 16 billion yuan, which saw an increase of 14.3 percent year-on-year.
Zhao Yandi contributed to this story.

Guizhou nurses big data ambitions

Southwest China's Guizhou province is intensifying its big data industry drive through the establishment of a new tech company based on Huawei's core Kunpeng processor.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

New wrinkle for big data: Take it underwater
By ZHENG CAIXIONG in Guangzhou | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-01-11 15:36

The undersea data center was officially launched in Gaolan port in the Zhuhai special economic zone of Guangdong province on Sunday. [Photo by Fu Zhiguan/for chinadaily.com.cn]
The country's first undersea big data center – known as a UDC – was officially launched at a ceremony in Gaolan port in the Zhuhai special economic zone of Guangdong province on Sunday.
The UDC was developed by Beijing Highlander Digital Technology Co, a company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and Guangzhou Shipyard International Co, a company listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The two companies completed construction of the UDC late last year and carried out underwater testing, said Xu Tan, vice-president of Highlander.
Currently, big data centers are mainly built for use on land. Annual economic volume of those centers exceeds 300 billion yuan ($46.15 billion).
But big data centers on land usually take up a lot of space, and their heavy cooling requirements mean they consume a lot of power and water resources.

The undersea data center was officially launched in Gaolan port in the Zhuhai special economic zone of Guangdong province on Sunday. [Photo by Fu Zhiguan/for chinadaily.com.cn]
"Project UDC" intends to install internet facilities, including servers, in sealed pressurized vessels with advanced cooling functions, Xu said.
The UDC uses a large amount of flowing seawater to cool the electronics through a heat exchanger, which saves energy over conventional cooling methods.
"The UDC occupies very little land on shore, has no cooling towers and does not consume fresh water. It not only accommodates ecological activities such as marine ranching and fishing cages but also supports other industrial activities, such as offshore wind power and oil platforms," Xu said.
A UDC in the waters near coastal cities significantly shortens the distance between data and users. It doesn't require land, and it saves energy. It is a completely green and sustainable big data center solution, Xu said.



New wrinkle for big data: Take it underwater

 

[kunming tiger]

Guizhou announces dates for 2021 Big Data Expo
chinadaily.com.cn| Updated: 2021-01-15Print

After being suspended last year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 China International Big Data Industry Expo will be held in Guiyang, the capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, on May 26-29.
This year's expo will be themed around the integration of digitalization and the real economy, as well as industrial development, focusing on innovative technologies in various areas and global industries.
The expo will be held online and offline, inviting professionals from government departments, universities and research institutions to discuss big data technologies, the big data industry and big data applications in the next five years.
The exhibition will focus on companies' demands, showcase Guiyang's digitalization achievements and present the new global trends in 5G technology, artificial intelligence and blockchain.
It will also collect advanced technological achievements in big data and related areas and give awards in the categories of "black technology," "new product," "new technology" and "business model."
Competitions and activities will be held, including the series competitions of "China International Big Data Fusion and Innovation" and coordination activities for investment and financing.
The expo will also cooperate with professional and international media outlets to expand its influence around the world.

Guizhou announces dates for 2021 Big Data Expo

After being suspended last year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 China International Big Data Industry Expo will be held in Guiyang, the capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, on May 26-29.

guizhou.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

High-tech center rises in Guizhou's mountains
By LEI XIAOXUN,YANG JUN and WANG XIAOYU in Guiyang | China Daily | Updated: 2021-01-25 10:05

File photo shows a visitor tours a display center of the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Area in Southwest China's Guizhou province, May 22, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]
A rags-to-riches story is always riveting, and when the main character is a province with 36 million people from 18 ethnic groups, the tale is all the more inspirational.
Guizhou province, once a byword for a landlocked location and backward development, has transformed into Western China's big data hub.
Few foresaw this development. Less than a decade ago, more than one in four Guizhou residents was classified as impoverished. The factors that constrained economic development for decades－mountainous terrain that obstructed interregional connectivity, distance from trade ports and a lack of local talent－seemed insurmountable.
The province's blend with big data has been a surprise. In recent years, high-technology projects and companies have tended to cluster in the southern and eastern coastal provinces that boast mature industry chains for high-level manufacturing, making them places college graduates and experienced professionals prefer to settle down.
To quench the thirst for new development opportunities, Guizhou has taken local conditions into account and discovered the value hidden in its "weaknesses".
Though situated in the southwestern hinterland, the province is far from major seismic belts at home and in adjacent regions. Few tremors of a magnitude greater than 3.1 have been reported in the province, thus lowering the earthquake risk to large data centers.
The rolling mountains and deep valleys, a typical headache for the construction of transportation networks, endow the province with a temperate climate that drives down the huge cooling costs shouldered by data companies. Guizhou's average annual temperature is 15 C.
Compared with other data storage hot spots prized for their cool climates, such as the Inner Mongolia autonomous region in the northwest, Guizhou enjoys good air quality that eliminates the need for air purifiers in giant server rooms.
Meanwhile, thanks to bountiful energy resources and accelerated construction of internet infrastructure, the province can cater to the demands of power-hungry data companies at a relatively low price.
Guizhou's industrial and economic development still lags behind the traditional economic powerhouses, but the province is leading the race in terms of using and parsing data to innovate and improve livelihoods.
From hailing trucks and selling agricultural produce, to predicting floods and offering government services, big data is being introduced to a growing number of sectors in Guizhou.
"The growth rate for the province's digital economy has been ranked first nationwide for five consecutive years," said Ma Ningyu, head of Guizhou's Big Data Development Administration Bureau.
"The digital economy, with big data as the key element, has become the new driver of Guizhou's high-quality development."



High-tech center rises in Guizhou's mountains

 

[kunming tiger]

East Century uses big data for flood control
By WANG XIAOYU and YANG JUN in Guiyang | China Daily | Updated: 2021-02-02 10:11

A time tunnel effect is displayed at Guizhou province's big data demonstration center in Guiyang. [Photo/Xinhua]
As climate change heightens the threat of flooding, a big data and cloud computing company in Guizhou province is intent on harnessing a range of information to track risk factors and send alerts in a rapid and cost-effective manner.
The conventional method for predicting floods relies on setting up physical hydrometric stations in high-risk areas. Based on information transmitted from sensors placed near waterways, a number of variables are monitored, including water level, flow rate, temperature, rainfall and evaporation, and then analysis is conducted accordingly.
The method is effective and essential, but the caveat is that to increase its precision inevitably requires investing more in infrastructure, said Li Tao, chief engineer at Guizhou East Century Science& Technology, a company founded in 2000 in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province.
With extreme weather shifts becoming more common, it is not feasible to continuously establish new hydrometric stations in every area deemed as flood-prone, Li said.
The company, set up in the city regarded as the epicenter of China's emerging big data scene, has instead looked to the digital sphere to tackle mounting flood hazards.
The novel warning system, known as East Auspicious Clouds, first aggregates meteorological and geographic information, as well as data on water bodies and rainfall, from different government departments and research institutions.
Both real-time and historical data are fed into an analysis model that boasts one of the fastest speeds in the world to complete one session of comprehensive analysis of all data at hand.
"The system breaks from the traditional flood forecasting mechanism that usually costs a lot in terms of construction and equipment maintenance. It also covers a much wider range of areas and achieves a high precision rate," Li said.
"The traditional sensors measure the amount of water on the ground. By comparison, the system begins calculating and forecasting the amount of rainfall when raindrops begin forming from water vapor in the air," he said.
Yu Linmei, deputy general manager of the company, said in an earlier interview that the system is able to renew its alerts every 15 minutes. The normal speed for domestic counterparts is one hour to 90 minutes, and for most advanced global competitors about 30 minutes.
On average, the system is able to issue warnings for small and medium-sized bodies of water about one to four hours in advance. The window of opportunity for early preparedness is estimated to reduce economic losses by up to 90 percent, according to the company.
The idea of tapping into big data's potential for flood prediction work was first hatched in 2014. The first version of the system was rolled out in 2018 and the second in May 2019.
So far, the system has been mainly applied in Guizhou province and is also making headway in other parts of the country, the company said.
In June, the system had successfully predicted 10 hours in advance that a stretch of railway tracks connecting Guizhou and Sichuan provinces were at risk of being submerged.
The information enabled the railroad authority in Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan, to take precautions and minimize the flood's disruption to regular rail service.
"Imagine how many more physical sensors are needed to obtain such information. For the system to sharpen its sensitivity and accuracy, the key is to gather as much data as possible. The more the data, the better the outcome," Li said.
However, he added that the system at the moment only acts as an additional source of information for decision-making provided to those responsible for gathering insights from various parties before taking adequate precautions.
Predicting natural disasters is extremely complicated. None of the experts in the industry can assert that their projections are absolutely correct, but it is always helpful to see the issue from another perspective, he said. Li added that it will take time for flood-prevention workers and authorities to learn and adopt a brand-new system that overturns the conventional method and uses novel technologies such as big data and cloud computing.

East Century uses big data for flood control

As climate change heightens the threat of flooding, a big data and cloud computing company in Guizhou province is intent on harnessing a range of information to track risk factors and send alerts in a rapid and cost-effective manner.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Big data spurs growth in Guizhou
By WANG HAO,LEI XIAOXUN,YANG JUN and WANG XIAOYU in Guiyang | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2021-02-02 08:06

A bird's-eye view of expressways in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province. [Photo by Qin Gang/For China Daily]
Province transforms into key transportation, internet hub
Karst rock formations shrouded in mist are typical scenery in outlying areas of Guiyang and Guian New Area, Guizhou province, but the provincial capital and the national-level new area are also home to equally solid technological foundations.
Countless thousands of computer servers whir away in the city's data storage plants, where the temperature is strictly controlled.
These facilities bear the logos of global conglomerates such as Apple and Foxconn Technology Group, as well as Tencent, Huawei and other domestic technology powerhouses.

Big data spurs growth in Guizhou

Karst rock formations shrouded in mist are typical scenery in outlying areas of Guiyang and Guian New Area, Guizhou province, but the provincial capital and the national-level new area are also home to equally solid technological foundations.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Center for big data at heart of metro cluster
By Yang Cheng in Tianjin and Zhang Yu in Shijiazhuang | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-02-03 17:35

A pedestrian walks past a 5G promotion board. [Photo by Su Yang/For China Daily]
Zhang Zhigang, head of the mobile services provider China Telecom's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Big Data Center, is delighted to see the first phase of the center, with four buildings, constructed during the pandemic last year.
The center, which started construction in Tianjin's Wuqing district, in late February last year, when coronavirus infections were spreading rapidly, is expected to enter service in the second half this year.
"The pandemic will never hamper our steps in construction or, more important, the synergism of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei province cluster," Zhang said.
China Telecom has pinned high hopes on the large internet data center to provide faster service to more 5G, internet and government clients in the region. It poured in a hefty initial investment of 10.2 billion yuan ($1.58 billion).
"We located the project in Tianjin because Beijing announced it would never approve large IDC projects with high energy consumption, even though the demand for such services is escalating," Zhang said.
In addition, Zhang said, "North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and Southwest China's Guizhou province are hot investment destinations for big data projects in China. We chose Wuqing district because of the shortened data transmission distance from there to destinations in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, North China and Central China," he said.
Big data transmission has a 1 millisecond speed delay per 500 kilometers. "If we count the distance from Beijing to Guizhou as more than 2,000 kilometers, and Beijing to the Inner Mongolia autonomous region as 480 km, Tianjin's advantage is obvious," he said.
China Telecom's big data center is a prime example of the role of Tianjin — an hour's drive from the capital — in declustering Beijing's industrial energy consumption burden, while boosting the synergistic development of the region.
During the first 11 months of last year, Tianjin has lured 623 projects from Beijing with an investment of 105.8 billion yuan, accounting for 40.7 percent of total domestic investment.
In addition, high-tech projects are shifting their locations from Beijing to nearby Hebei — including the Hebei-South Beijing National High-Tech Achievement Transfer Model Zone, Baoding-Zhongguancun Innovation Center and Caoweidian-Zhongguancun High-tech Industrial Zone.
During the 13th Five-year Plan period (2015-20), Hebei province lured high-tech projects from Beijing, valued at 6.63 million yuan.
Dai Dongqiang, Party chief of Tianjin's Wuqing district, said, "Quality projects are crucial for the region's coordinated development and quality investment climate."
In addition to declustering Beijing's industrial and population burden, looking for cutting edge projects to move is at the top of the local governments' agenda, Dai said.
Liu Binglian, director of the College of Economic and Social Development and Nankai University's College of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Collaborative Development, noted: "Fostering new economic engines is the key for the region in building itself into a world-class city cluster."

Center for big data at heart of metro cluster

Zhang Zhigang, head of the mobile services provider China Telecom's Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Big Data Center, is delighted to see the first phase of the center, with four buildings, constructed during the pandemic last year.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

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More efforts urged to boost data-powered economy
By Ouyang Shijia | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-03-04 17:16

A time tunnel effect is displayed at Guizhou province's big data demonstration center in Guiyang. [Photo/Xinhua]
China should speed up efforts to boost the development of the data factor market, in a move to better drive the digital economy and foster high-quality development for the coming five years, said a national political adviser.
"Data is the most important strategic resource and core asset in the era of the digital economy," said Lai Mingyong, a member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. "While China has made considerable progress in terms of making policies, development scale, applications and technological innovations, there are problems that hinder the free flow of data and information. More urgent efforts are needed to spur the innovation and boost the data-powered economy."
Lai proposed promoting the free flow of data and information among both governments and enterprises, saying more efforts are needed to accelerate the practice of public data sharing for government at all levels and encourage enterprises to establish data sharing platforms.
According to him, the government needs to make a big push to promote data exchanges and distribution, drive the deep integration between data and the real economy, continuously speed up the digital transformation and smart upgrading of traditional infrastructure, and better regulate data exchanges and distribution.
In recent years, China has been working hard to scale up measures to spur digital economy growth.
China's digital economy reached 35.8 trillion yuan ($5.5 trillion) in 2019, accounting for 36.2 percent of the country's total GDP, according to a report released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies.
Last April, the country announced guidelines to help improve mechanisms for market-based allocation of production factors. The document said the government would take key measures to energize the supply of technology and accelerate the cultivation of the data market.

More efforts urged to boost data-powered economy

China should speed up efforts to boost the development of the data factor market, in a move to better drive the digital economy and foster high-quality development for the coming five years, said a national political adviser.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

[kunming tiger]

Experts urge tougher laws to protect data
By HE WEI in Shanghai and CHENG YU in Beijing | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2021-03-17 06:55

JIN DING/CHINA DAILY
Calls come after meeting reiterates need to boost oversight of internet-related economy
Laws and regulations associated with data protection and the improvement of the internet-based economy are widely expected as Beijing signaled a fresh round of efforts to curb monopolies and bolster fairness in the fast-growing sector, experts said.
A key meeting presided over by President Xi Jinping on Monday reiterated the necessity of strengthening oversight of the economy supported by internet platforms, which has helped raise efficiency in the allocation of resources yet faces malaises such as unregulated growth and an insufficient governance system.
Mounting calls for expedited improvement of related rules and systems, as well as the development of a property rights system for data, would herald an era of strengthened regulation and lawmaking on data and privacy-related protection, said Li Bing, principal of consultancy Roland Berger.
"With the basic framework for privacy protection already put in place, laws on data security and information protection are likely to be passed in the next one or two years, which will enhance the legal basis for market operations and further unleash the vitality of internet players," Li said.
Since the end of last year, the government has taken serious steps to investigate internet giants, like Alibaba Group, suspected of misconduct and has followed up on a number of cases involving issues ranging from abuses of monopolistic status to the untimely disclosure of business acquisitions.
In the latest instance, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced on Tuesday it would conduct a probe into the quality of products sold via online livestreaming, a burgeoning practice that facilitates e-commerce sales but lacks regulatory scrutiny.
The move comes after the agency fined 12 companies 500,000 yuan ($77,000) each last week over understated acquisitions and investments.
"Anticompetitive practices in the internet-related economy do not help companies to stand out. In the long term, they are expected to leverage products, content or technology to generate fresh growth engines," said Wang Peng, an associate professor of the Hillhouse Research Institute at Renmin University of China in Beijing, who pointed out there were hardly any regulations so far on the internet sector.
From an economic point of view, the value of data can hardly be maximized if a company confines the data to its own use, said Yi Tong, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Science and Technology.
"Sustained efforts are needed to curb data monopolies and promote the freer flow of data during the rapid development of the internet-related economy, in order to stimulate technological innovation and enable more breakthroughs," said Yi.
Lack of regulations
Even if most leading internet platforms reap gains from user data and enjoy a monopolistic status, Yi said there is a lack of clear rules on data circulation, and the existing laws are insufficient in terms of ensuring the proper utilization of data and curbing monopolies.
"It is especially important when China is accelerating informatization and calling for continuous breakthroughs in technologies such as chips and operating systems," she said. "Without proper data flows, companies cannot foster further technological innovations."
According to Yi, a flexible data flow policy will help China gain an edge in global competitiveness, especially as economies like the United States and Europe have already started to leverage their data.
For instance, the US launched an action plan last year to make data a strategic resource, while Germany has proposed an action plan to build a standard communication structure for safe data circulation.

Experts urge tougher laws to protect data

Laws and regulations associated with data protection and the improvement of the internet-based economy are widely expected as Beijing signaled a fresh round of efforts to curb monopolies and bolster fairness in the fast-growing sector, experts said.

www.chinadaily.com.cn

 

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Big data exchange to aid China's digital drive
By CHENG YU | China Daily | Updated: 2021-04-01 09:08

A photo shows a night view of the CBD area in downtown Beijing. [Photo/Agencies]
The Beijing International Big Data Exchange, which was set up in the capital city on Wednesday with a registered capital of 200 million yuan ($30.46 million), is expected to play a key role in China's digital economy promotion efforts and facilitate more data-based transactions in the country.
Established by Beijing Financial Holdings Group and government agencies like the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, the exchange will become critical infrastructure for data security, data operations and cross-border data transactions.
"It will play an important role in cultivating a sound data exchange market to unleash the value of data and drive digital economy. It will be first applied in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province and expanded nationwide and globally later," said Yin Yong, vice-mayor of Beijing.
A data transaction system using blockchain and security computing technology was also launched, which will offer a series of services including data cleaning and data evaluation.
Fan Wenzhong, Party secretary and chairman of Beijing Financial Holdings Group, said: "The new exchange will strive to make the purchase and use of data more standardized and safer."
The digital economy is a key focus for China in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25). Core industrial output is expected to account for 10 percent of the country's GDP by 2025.
China's digital trade has grown rapidly in the last few years. According to the Ministry of Commerce, the country's digital trade, including exports and imports, surged by 6.7 percent to $203.6 billion in 2019, accounting for 26 percent of the total service trade volume.
"In this increasingly digital era of globalization, countries led by the US are striving to seize the high ground of digital trade," said Liu Yingkui, head of international trade at the Academy of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
According to a report published by global consultancy firm McKinsey&Co, large gaps exist between a handful of leading countries and the rest of the world. The report ranked 139 countries on the basis of inflows and outflows of goods, services, finance, people and data. Singapore led the rankings, followed by the Netherlands, the United States and Germany.
China has grown more connected, reaching seventh place globally, but advanced economies in general remain more connected than developing countries.
Liu said China has accumulated a huge amount of data and data streams in a group of areas, including trans-border e-commerce and superfast 5G development. These are valuable foundations for the development of the digital economy.
"Once more companies join, the platform can leverage data and artificial intelligence to optimize industrial software and fill the gaps in industrial development with developed countries," he said.

Big data exchange to aid China's digital drive

The Beijing International Big Data Exchange, which was set up in the capital city on Wednesday with a registered capital of 200 million yuan ($30.46 million), is expected to play a key role in China's digital economy promotion efforts and facilitate more data-based transactions in the country.

www.chinadaily.com.cn