Recently, the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 was held in Guiyang, Guizhou, uder the theme "Smart Digital Technology Shapes Thriving Digital Economy." According to the data released at the expo, China's data industry has made initial progress, forming a relatively comprehensive data industry chain covering the full lifecycle of data collection, storage, calculation, management, and use. It is expected to maintain an annual growth rate of over 20% in the coming years. 

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the successful Big Data Expo. Each edition of the expo has been a "carnival" that keeps pace with the times. What new achievements were unveiled at this year's expo, and what new trends have emerged in the development of China's digital economy?

Highlight 1: Data Industry

With dynamic digital elements, the digital landscape of China has seen promising prospects. The Big Data Expo 2024 not only gathered the elites and pioneers in the global big data field, but also showcased the latest  achievements of China's data industry innovation.

At the opening ceremony, the keynote speakers pointed out that China's digital economy has ranked second in the world for several consecutive years, with the scale of its core digital economy industry growing rapidly, accounting for around 10% of the country's GDP. The latest data shows that the total data production in China reached 32.85ZB in 2023, equivalent to the total digital resources of more than 10 million National Library of China.

The significant increase in data has also empowered various industries. The Tianyi Cloud platform brought by China Telecom meets general needs such as drone remote control, live video streaming, and data management in a one-stop manner; as for the "Village BA" event in Pingxiang, Jiangxi, a big data analysis platform was introduced to ensure the smooth and uninterrupted live broadcast of the event... Moreover, China Telecom has built a "Data Chain Artificial Intelligence Network" data capability system based on the massive data of operators and the integration of external industry data, upgrading the "Lingze Data Element Chain Service," creating the "Xinghai Big Data Capability Matrix," and exploring  "Galaxy Data Cross-border Circulation Solutions".

In Huanggang Village of Shuangjiang Town in Liping County, Baiyan Village of Danjiang Town in Leishan County, and Luwei Community of Juren Neighborhood in Nayong County of Bijie City, Southeast Guizhou Province, Guizhou Mobile and the Big Data Department Administration of Guizhou Province have conducted on-site surveys to accurately meet the needs of grassroots workers. They have jointly developed the "Digital Rural Management Platform of Guizhou" that integrates digital governance, digital services, and digital decision-making. The platform features the functions of video surveillance, AI early warning, digital doorplates, cloud loudspeakers, and convenient services, providing all-around support for digital rural development, driving rural industrial digitalization, modernizing rural governance, and making rural life smarter.

China Unicom has been persistently pushing forward with the development of original big data technologies to facilitate the utilization of public data. It has provided government data platform services for 36 ministries and commissions and 24 provinces, built economic operation platforms for 10 ministries and commissions and 17 provinces, and constructed the Hangzhou Data Element Operation Center, forming a "front store and back workshop" model with the data trading center as the front store and data production and processing as the back workshop. It has also built the Huainan Big Data Trading Center in Hefei, Anhui, proposed the "double foundation-double model-double circulation-one cycle" framework, and established the "four rights and four certificates" credential circulation operation system.

Highlight 2: Artificial Intelligence

As one of the highlights of this year's expo, artificial intelligence (AI) was the topic of many exchange activities during the event. The innovative achievements were particularly eye-catching.

At the expo, the Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, teamed up with Alibaba Cloud to launch the "Multimodal Professional Model for Lunar Science" (referred to as the "Lunar Professional Model"). The model's accuracy in dating and morphological identification of lunar impact craters has reached 80% or above. The Lunar Professional Model will greatly accelerate the processing of massive data, helping scientific researchers uncover new findings. Scientific researchers only need to input images of lunar impact craters and related questions, and the Lunar Professional Model can utilize Tongyi Vision and multimodal models to determine the modal type of the image from 17 types of multimodal data (including spectral, elevation, and gravity data). By searching knowledge bases and calling on Tongyi language models, the Lunar Professional Model can answer questions about the morphology, size, and age of the impact crater, and provide a reasoning process. "By accurately grasping massive data, the large model can not only classify impact craters, but also solve some scientific problems," said Liu Jianzhong, a researcher at the Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, "Next, the Lunar Professional Model will be embedded in the 'Digital Lunar Cloud Platform' to drive the intelligent upgrade of this platform."

In addition, China Telecom launched the "Xingchen" AI large model, aiming to create industry scene large models and the Xingchen MaaS platform for industry customers. With functions such as semantic understanding, speech recognition, image processing, and multimodal interaction, it provides users with diverse and integrated large model application services. China Telecom also released a series of Xingchen industry large models in fields such as government affairs, political and legal affairs, public security, cultural publicity, education, healthcare, agriculture, industry, finance, housing and construction, transportation, and daily life. China Mobile has innovatively launched three AI intelligent entities: "Huiji" cloud video conferencing, "Huiguan" intercom, and "Huikan" surveillance cameras, which are widely used in industry scenarios such as comprehensive law enforcement, engineering supervision, government office work, enterprise discussions, digital rural areas, and "visible kitchens." China Unicom has accelerated the upgrade of its "1+1+M" Yuanjing 2.0 and created 35 industry large models to empower the intelligent upgrading of various industries. Among them, the Jiangxi Luxshare Electronics' digital instructor project uses digital instructors to provide online explanations and real-time problem solutions, able to correct employees' practical operations in real time.

Highlight 3: Robots

With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, intelligent robots have gradually moved from manufacturing to service industries, truly entering every aspect of people's lives. At this year's expo, various robot products were showcased in the exhibition areas, attracting visitors to experience the scientific and technological charm of intelligent robots.  

Take the cup, drop the ice, pump the water, grind the coffee beans, extract the coffee, froth the milk, and serve the coffee... In just 50 seconds, the robot expertly operates the mechanical arm to prepare a cup of coffee known as Geisha, a popular variety in the coffee world. Because the robot saves 90% of the cost, the coffee is priced at just 9.9 yuan per cup, surprising the audience on the spot. This is the COFE+ intelligent coffee master robot produced by Shanghai Hi-Dolphin Robot Technology Co., Ltd. By the first half of 2024, COFE+ has been exported to 31 countries around the world and distributed in 15 provinces and cities in China.

At the China Telecom booth, a humanoid robot caught the attention of many visitors. Launched by UNITREE last year, the robot, named H1, is approximately 180 cm tall and weighs around 47 kg. With excellent mobility, it can reach a maximum speed of 3.3 m/s, setting a world record for full-size humanoid robots. It is equipped with 360-degree panoramic perception technology, can move and perform various complex operations skillfully. It is the world's first electric-driven humanoid robot capable of performing a backflip in place. In terms of application scenarios, H1 mainly applies to primarily suited for industrial settings and also finds applications in the service industry.

NetEase's agile engineering robots, including excavator robots and loaders, also made an impressive appearance at the expo. The excavator robots are equipped with NetEase Fuxi's self-developed industrial AI model, allowing real-time transmission of the perception data to the remote client, enabling autonomous operation at any location  via remote driving According to available information, these excavator robots can now autonomously perform loading and unloading operations, path-following, and automatic dumping, with the efficiency of dumping and loading surpassing that of manual labor. The daily excavation volume exceeds 1,000 square meters. The loader robot is particularly well-suited for concrete mixing station operations. Through intelligent upgrades of hardware and other measures, it can achieve full automated unloading of bulk materials in all scenarios, significantly enhancing production efficiency and construction safety while reducing the operating costs of mixing stations.