The scale is close to 40 trillion yuan, opportunities and challenges for the development of my country's digital economy

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In recent years, with the advent of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, a digital transformation has quietly arrived. The digital economy, a new economic model that originated from the knowledge economy, developed from the information economy and the network economy, and relied on various intelligent technologies, is now becoming a new form and new driving force for driving the intelligent and digital transformation of the industrial economy and promoting the development of the national economy.

According to the White Paper on the Development of China's Digital Economy, as of 2020, the scale of my country's digital economy has reached 39.2 trillion yuan, accounting for 38.6% of GDP. The development of digital economy in my country is achieving unprecedented speed and results. So, why can my country's digital economy develop so fast and achieve remarkable results? What are the future prospects?

In fact, the reason why my country's digital economy has developed so well is inseparable from the good domestic foundation. The development of the digital economy mainly relies on the Internet, communication technology, big data and the real economy as support. In recent years, my country has made positive progress in these areas, laying a solid foundation for the development of the digital economy and bringing important opportunities.

For example, in terms of Internet popularization and network infrastructure construction. The latest "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet" shows that as of June 2021, the number of Internet users in my country has reached 1.011 billion, and the Internet penetration rate has reached 71.6%, 6 percentage points higher than the global average. At the same time, my country's network infrastructure construction is accelerating, and fiber-to-the-home is also accelerating.

In terms of 4G network coverage and 5G technology implementation, my country has also achieved good results in the past two years. As of August 2021, the total number of 4G base stations in my country exceeded 5 million, and the mobile Internet access data traffic consumption exceeded 100 billion GB. 4G coverage has entered a mature stage. In addition, 5G technology research and development has also achieved results, with a total of 1.037 million 5G base stations built, covering all prefecture-level cities across the country.

In addition, big data and the real economy have also been receiving positive news since 2020. Under the impact of the epidemic, my country has proposed a new infrastructure development strategy, and the big data industry has ushered in rapid development. Data centers have been established in many provinces and cities, injecting strong vitality into the development of the digital economy. At the same time, the digitalization and intelligent transformation of the real economy has also been further accelerated. As cloud computing has become a hot topic, various technologies have also been rapidly implemented.

In short, based on the continuous development of the Internet, communication technology, big data, and the real economy, my country's digital economy has strong momentum and remarkable results. According to industry insiders, in the future, with the explosive development of new formats such as live e-commerce and the rapid rise of rural e-commerce, e-commerce will also drive the acceleration of the digitalization level of the service industry. By then, my country's digital economy will continue to grow and the prospects are promising.

However, it is not easy to promote the further maturity of the digital economy. At this stage, as an important driving force for the development of the digital economy, industrial digitalization is the key, but in the process of industrial digitalization, it requires national policy promotion, data factor drive, promotion, technology platform pull and industrial development linkage, and several factors are indispensable. However, at present, my country's industrial digitalization faces serious obstacles in terms of enterprises alone.

Relevant reports pointed out that the digital upgrading of my country's existing industries faces many problems, such as insufficient digital transformation capabilities of enterprises resulting in "inability to transform"; high costs of digital transformation and insufficient funds of enterprises resulting in "inability to transform"; insufficient reserves of relevant talents in enterprises resulting in "fear of transformation"; unclear transformation strategies of enterprise decision-makers resulting in "poor transformation"; ineffective multi-layer organizational models of enterprises resulting in "unwillingness to transform", etc. These have led to a development deadlock.

In this context, the mature development of my country's digital economy in the future needs to accelerate the tackling of various problems faced by enterprises in the process of industrial digitalization. This requires enterprises to improve their talents, funds, and awareness, as well as explore paths and technologies. In addition, the industry and government also need to help, on the one hand, cultivate the data privacy security responsibility and awareness of enterprises and the public, and on the other hand, strengthen industry norms and supervision.