Data as production factor come of age

Chinese manufacturers use digital technologies to enhance output, serve consumers better for competitive advantage

A workshop manufacturing home appliances in Tianjin offers consumers a chance to customize washing machines using their mobile phones remotely. When they place an order, intelligent equipment in internet-connected factory automatically reads the information and starts customized production in accordance with their preferences.

The digital information system and automated production line are empowered by COSMOPlat, an industrial internet platform developed by Chinese home appliance maker Haier Group.

Currently, manufacturers can customize products quickly and at scale by collecting and analyzing data collected from consumers, suppliers and factories with internet-connected sensors via their industrial internet platforms, while boosting productivity and cutting costs.

Haier's example offers a glimpse into Chinese manufacturing enterprises that leverage digital technologies, covering advanced data analysis, cloud computing and the internet of things, to transform and upgrade traditional industries. Data have become a new type of production factor and are playing an increasingly vital role in bolstering industrial digitalization.

China's emphasis on promoting the development and application of data resources, and building the basic systems for data, will help foster new growth drivers and inject fresh impetus into the effort for high-quality economic development, industry experts said.

Highlighting that data serve as the core element of the digital economy, they called for more efforts to accelerate the construction of digital infrastructure, promote sharing, circulation and trading of data elements, and expand the application scenarios of data in more fields, so as to unleash the value of massive data resources.

China will take further steps to promote reforms related to the market-oriented allocation of data elements and improve the basic systems for data, as part of its broader push to foster new quality productive forces, said Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Administration, at a recent news conference in Beijing.

Liu stressed efforts to speed up the formulation of policies concerning data property rights, circulation and transaction, revenue distribution and security governance. He also emphasized the need to nurture a nationwide integrated data market, and press ahead with the construction of data infrastructure like a national computing power network.

China will step up the push to bolster the development and utilization of public data and enterprise data, expand the application scenarios of data elements, as well as strengthen international cooperation in the digital economy domain, in order to cultivate new competitive advantages, Liu said.

He also emphasized the significance of promoting the smooth circulation and efficient allocation of data elements, which play a pivotal role in nurturing new industries, new business models and new growth drivers.

Liu's remarks came after the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China adopted a resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. The resolution called for efforts to improve the systems for promoting full integration between the real economy and the digital economy.

China will build and operate national data infrastructure to promote data sharing, and accelerate the establishment of a system for data property rights concerning ownership determination, market transaction, proceeds distribution and interest protection, the resolution said.