Digital economy expands in scale, demonstrating enormous potential

People watch as an AI-powered robotic arm writes with a brush at the hand-on experience area during the 7th Digital China Summit in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, May 24, 2024. [Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan]

BEIJING -- China's digital economy has expanded rapidly in recent years, showcasing significant growth potential and contributing to the country's high-quality development. The following are some facts and figures highlighting the country's latest progress in the area.

The value-added output of core industries in the digital economy reached 10 percent of China's total gross domestic product in 2023, according to the latest report on the development of Digital China released by the National Data Administration.

The figure showed that the country reached the target set in the plan to facilitate the development of the digital economy in the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025) two years ahead of the schedule.

The plan, rolled out by the State Council in 2022, aimed to raise the proportion of value-added output of core digital economy industries in its GDP to 10 percent in 2025, up from 7.8 percent in 2020.

Data showed that the country's digital infrastructure has largely improved, with the scale of computing power reaching 230 EFLOPS in 2023, ranking second in the world.

By the end of last year, the scale of computing power across more than 2,200 computing centers nationwide had grown by approximately 30 percent year on year, according to the 2023 edition of the national data resource survey report.

The demand for computing power for large model training surged, with increased need observed in the scientific, governmental, financial and industrial sectors, according to the report.

In terms of data production, China generated 32.85 zettabytes of data last year, up 22.44 percent year on year, as the country experienced explosive growth in unstructured data production during the period.

The rapid development of 5G and AI technologies, along with the widespread use of smart devices, contributed significantly to the increase in total data volume through content creation and audiovisual media, according to the report.

In terms of data storage, the country's cumulative data storage volume reached 1.73 zettabytes in 2023, with its storage space utilization rate climbing to 59 percent.

Digital technologies have increasingly been integrated into various areas of economic and social development in China, promoting the accelerated formation of new quality productive forces.

The scale of China's intelligent manufacturing equipment industry has exceeded 3.2 trillion yuan (about 450 billion U.S. dollars), with 421 national-level demonstration factories cultivated. Technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital twins are applied in over 90 percent of these demonstration factories, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Data showed that 570 million Chinese people engaged in digital reading last year, and electronic social security card users accounted for more than 70 percent of the total population by the end of March this year.