On August 30, the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 (Big Data Expo 2024) concluded successfully in Guiyang, Guizhou Province. The Expo highlighted the latest industry trends and technological advancements, creating an open international platform for exchange and cooperation. Around 21,600 participants from 32 countries and regions engaged in in-depth discussions under the theme of "Smart Digital Technology Shapes Thriving Digital Economy", exploring the future of the digital economy.

Activating the Potential of Data Elements

"Currently, data, as a new type of production factor, has been deeply integrated into all fields of the economy and society. Accelerating the construction of the digital economy with data as a key element is inseparable from a robust data industry support," said Liu Liehong, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Data Administration. Cultivating the data industry is an important foundation for advancing the reform on the market-oriented allocation of data elements and is an inevitable choice for developing new quality productive forces and promoting high-quality development.

How to unleash the potential of data elements? "The improvement of data quality is an important prerequisite for releasing the value of public data elements," said Huang Chaochun, Party Secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Academy of Social Sciences. Building a data element market requires both supply-side efforts to leverage the resource optimization and allocation capabilities of market mechanisms and demand-side exploration of value.

"Input the details of industries, application scenarios and data quality into the calculator, it can determine credible price ranges for data products to solve the pricing problem," said Ye Yuting, General Manager of the Guiyang Big Data Exchange. As the first of its kind in China, the Guiyang Big Data Exchange released the country's first set of data trading rules in May 2022, and launched the country's first data product trading price calculator.

"We are the first to provide public data development and utilization services, enabling data elements to be 'published locally, searchable globally, and recognized interchangeably across industries'," said Tan Lu, head of the "Tianyuan" digital chain project at Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industrial Development Co., Ltd. The platform has facilitated the integration of 2,000 products from over 800 data vendors across the country into the Guiyang Big Data Exchange.

The continuous optimization of market allocation enhances the role of data elements. The National Big Data (Guizhou) Comprehensive Pilot Zone Development Report 2023 released during the Big Data Expo 2024 showed that in the past five years, the Guiyang Big Data Exchange has attracted more than 1,000 data vendors and third-party service agencies, achieving a cumulative transaction volume of 4.9 billion yuan.

Empowering Industrial Transformation and Development

"The ongoing digital transformation has become a global trend," said Mei Hong, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Peking University. He necessitated profound collaboration and integration across various industries centered on the theme of informatization to achieve their own transformation.

"Leveraging AI large model technology to empower the real economy presents a new opportunity for corporate development," said Tao Zhiqiang, Vice President of Huawei Cloud China and Head of Huawei Cloud Ecosystem Development and Operations. He cited an example, "At Guizhou Tyre, production scheduling time has been reduced from three days to one hour, resulting in a 3% increase in overall production capacity."

In recent years, as the first national big data comprehensive pilot zone, Guizhou has implemented the "Ten Thousand Enterprises Integration" initiative, driving over 30,000 enterprises to use cloud services, making big data a key engine for economic and social development.

The Gui'an Data Center Cluster, hosting 22 large and super-large data centers, is among the areas with the highest concentration of super-large data centers worldwide. In June 2024, State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) relocated its data center here.

"Previously, equipment like boilers relied mainly on regular manual inspections, which could lead to losses in millions if problem arose. Now, by collecting and analyzing data from similar equipment across the group, our system can issue early warnings," said Fu Nan, Deputy General Manager of SPIC's Gui'an Data Center. Standing in front of the visualization screen clearly displaying spatial, system, and equipment data in the data center, he said confidently, "With effective utilization of big data, we have even greater confidence in our digital transformation!"

Enhancing Computing Power Application Scenarios for the Future

"Guizhou serves as a key hub in the national strategy of 'east-to-west computing resource transfer', providing a solid foundation for the development of the data center industry," said Hu An'gang, Dean of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies, Tsinghua University. He emphasized the need to effectively explore and develop application sites to better align with application scenarios and empower the development of new quality productive forces.

Intelligent connected vehicles, smart medical imaging, smart education, and spatial big data supporting cultural innovation were among the highlights at the Big Data Expo 2024, where the Guizhou Main Hub Data Center & Storage Center was launched with nine major application scenarios unveiled.

As the country's first integrated storage and computing center, the Guizhou Main Hub Data Center & Storage Center will leverage its robust hardware foundation to accelerate the migration of eastern data to the west, the storage and training of eastern data in the west, and the release of data element value, according to Zhou Hong, a member of the Party Committee and Vice President of Gui'an New Area Industrial Development Holding Group.

Harnessing the cloud, we ascend; driven by computing, we forge ahead into the future. In recent years, Guizhou has seen a remarkable enhancement in the computing, storage, and transmission capabilities of its big data industry through the vigorous construction of the National Integrated Computing Power Network (Guizhou) Hub, with intelligent computing comprising over 90% of its total computing power, ranking it among the strongest areas for intelligent computing in the country.