At a "digital seedling factory" in Dazhou city, southwest China's Sichuan province, technicians use an intelligent irrigation system to spray luffa seedlings. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

By ZHONG Jianli

The outlook for China's digital development in 2023 was promising, with its total computing power reaching 230 EFLOPS, ranking second globally. That was revealed by the Digital China Development Report (2023) released during the 7th Digital China Summit that opened in Fuzhou city, southeast China's Fujian province on May 24.

The report underscored the robust growth of the country's digital economy, with the value added by core digital industries accounting for around 10 percent of the GDP. The burgeoning data element market is evidenced by a total data production reaching 32.85 ZB, a 22.44 percent year-on-year growth.

China's digital society has become more inclusive and accessible, with the netizen population totaling 1.09 billion, and the number of digital reading users reaching 570 million.

Development of low-carbon data centers also made progress. A total of 196 green data centers have been built nationwide, boasting an average power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.27, according to the report.

Furthermore, during the two-day summit, experts discussed how to tap the potential of data to further develop the digital economy.

Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Bureau, said cities play a central role in economic development, social governance, and public services, and advancing the construction of Digital China. Promoting holistic digital transformation of urban areas is crucial to stimulate innovation and foster new high quality productive forces.

Liu also emphasized the necessity of setting up basic rules to unleash the value of data, finding new growth points in the digital economy, advancing digital transformations across all sectors, and fortifying digital infrastructure to consolidate development foundations.

"The value of data should be realized in application scenarios," said Wang Qinmin, chairman of the National e-Government Experts Committee, adding that the development and utilization of data should be speeded up to activate their potential.

An initiative for mutual recognition and interconnection of data trading institutions was launched during the summit. It aims to enhance the efficiency of data circulation and transaction, reduce costs, and drive the establishment of a unified, open, active, and efficient data element market.