Smart machinery is seen arranging a power line in Huzhou, Zhejiang province, on Monday. TAN YUNFENG/FOR CHINA DAILY

It was announced at the Digital Economy High-Quality Development Conference in Zhejiang province on Wednesday that added value of the province's digital economy accounted for 48.6 percent of its GDP in 2021, an increase of more than 10 percentage points compared with 2017.

Added value of the digital economy last year in Zhejiang was 3.6 trillion yuan ($532.4 billion), the fourth highest in the country. The province's industrial digitalization index ranked first in the country, according to the Digital China Development Report (2020).

At present, research and development of the digital economy's core industry in the province accounts for 7.3 percent of the added value, and the number of high-tech enterprises engaged in the digital economy has exceeded 11,000.

National laboratories and large scientific installations have made groundbreaking progress, and many innovative achievements such as brain-like computing chips and Feitian operating systems have emerged.

H3C, as a digital high-tech enterprise in Zhejiang, has insisted over the past six years that its investment in R&D should not be less than 14 percent of revenue. Its output value increased from 10 billion yuan to 60 billion yuan over the period.

In the digital era, enterprises should make innovation a top priority, and use innovation-driven strategies in the digital economy to shift from quantitative growth to high-quality development, said Dong Yunting, director of the expert committee at the China Federation of Electronics and Information Industry.

From January to May, added value of the digital economy's core manufacturing industry reached 139.65 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.7 percent, 8.2 percentage points higher than that of industries above a designated size, according to official Zhejiang statistics.

As early as 2003, the concept of Digital Zhejiang was proposed. In 2021, Zhejiang authorities commenced the province's digital reform and invested 149.55 billion yuan in digital economy industry projects. At present, digital reform has also seized opportunities arising from the technological revolution and industrial transformation.

Added value of the province's digital economy will strive to exceed 7 trillion yuan, and added value of core industries will exceed 1.6 trillion yuan in five years, said Yao Gaoyuan, director of Zhejiang's Economic and Information Department.

Zhejiang will also aim to make breakthroughs in the fields of high-performance professional chips, intelligent systems and supercomputing.

Meanwhile, the digital economy in Zhejiang will also be driven by gathering high-quality resources such as those in the Chengxi Science and Technology Innovation Corridor.