From 2016 to 2022, China's digital economy has grown from 22.6 trillion yuan to 50.2 trillion yuan, firmly ranking second in the world. Its share of the GDP has increased from 30.3% to 41.5%. Driven by digital technology innovation and the unlocking of data value, the digital industry is leading the way into the future. In the crucial stage of developing new quality productivity, the digital economy stands as a key battleground.
During the dialogue on New Quality Productivity and Digital Economic Development held on the 26th, authoritative experts and scholars such as Wang Yiming, Vice Chairman of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, Gao Peiyong, Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and He Hong, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, delivered keynote speeches, providing insights into the development of new quality productivity from various dimensions such as the digital economy, patient capital, and data elements.
Digital Economy Emerges as the Main Battlefield for Developing New Quality Productivity
The ability to quickly generate images and videos from natural language input, the application of large models in professional fields like research and production leading to efficiency leaps, and the accelerated release of data value through intelligent technology advancements... Over the past year, significant breakthroughs have been made in digital technologies, especially in artificial intelligence, driving a rapid increase in productivity in the new wave of digital economic development.
In Wang Yiming's view, the digital economy is at the forefront of new quality productivity and is the most innovative field. The stronger the innovation capability of the digital economy, the more advanced the digital technology, and the wider the application, the greater the role the digital economy plays in driving the development of new quality productivity.
From the perspective of reform and development, Gao Peiyong stated that the new quality productivity represented by the digital economy must be based on constructing new production relations and take the opportunity to further deepen comprehensive reforms. It is crucial to focus on breaking through various institutional and mechanistic barriers hindering the development of new quality productivity.
With each technological revolution nurturing new productivity, the next generation of productivity is expected to emerge from information technology and the digital economy. "All levels of society need to enhance their focus on digital technology, change traditional ways of thinking, and embrace the wave of digital technology," said Li Sanxi, Director of the Digital Economy Research Center at Renmin University of China.
Currently, China has introduced multiple policies to promote the innovation and upgrading of digital industrialization, accelerate the deep integration of industrial digitization, and steadily promote the construction of the data element market. Globally, technology companies are continuously seizing and surpassing the high points of digital technology, unleashing immense potential in industrial applications, making the digital economy a new driving force for economic recovery worldwide.
According to the "Global Digital Economy White Paper" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the digital economy of 51 major economies globally grew by 7.4% year-on-year, far exceeding the nominal growth rate of GDP during the same period. Since 2012, China's digital economy growth rate has been significantly higher than the GDP growth rate for 11 consecutive years.
Advanced economies like the United States and Germany have digital economies accounting for over 65% of their GDP. In contrast, China has just surpassed forty percent. To enhance the space for China's digital economy development, nurture more innovation and industries, industry experts believe that leveraging the value of data elements will be a crucial focus in the future.
As forecasted by international organizations, by 2025, China's data production is expected to surpass that of the United States, becoming the world's largest data producer. In the era of big data, the digital economy is evolving into a new economic form, where data has become the most critical production element. The significant characteristic of the digital economy is that the majority of economic activities are data-driven, generating a large amount of data that, in turn, drives new economic activities.
Furthermore, as an authoritative expert in the environmental field, He Hong, Member of the 14th National People's Congress Environmental and Resources Protection Committee and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, pointed out that digitization is the engine of new quality productivity, and greening is its essence.
Empowering Patient Capital to Safeguard the Development of New Quality Productivity
Recently, a meeting of the Central Political Bureau proposed "actively developing venture capital and strengthening patient capital," drawing widespread attention from the market and industry.
Patient capital adheres to long-term investment principles, providing stable capital support for technological innovation, traditional industry upgrading, and nurturing new industries. It plays an indispensable role in the critical stage of developing new quality productivity. According to experts at the meeting, the development of patient capital first requires a liberation of thinking and a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the nature and role of capital.
Li Sanxi pointed out that the concept of patient capital appearing in such a high-level meeting has played a positive role in enhancing the vitality and confidence of various capital investments. Capital that is not disturbed by short-term market fluctuations and can provide stable funding support for investment projects in the long term is an important engine for accelerating the cultivation and growth of new quality productivity, acting as a stabilizer in the market and a booster for economic development.
At the core of new quality productivity lies technological innovation, which requires significant research and development investment, long cycles, and high risks, necessitating the presence of patient capital. Whether addressing bottlenecks in the technology sector or developing future and emerging industries, long-term stable capital support is essential. Experts advocate for policies to maintain patience and determination, guiding investments towards long-term perspectives.
Xu Xiang, a professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, emphasized that innovation activities are highly uncertain, and any entity, including the government, finds it challenging to prematurely judge the success or failure of research and development or investments. An important premise for capital to possess patience is the need for various policies to provide certainty. Encouraging entrepreneurial spirit, offering sufficient tolerance and room for trial and error to market entities, is a necessary condition for innovators and investors to freely explore in a relatively open environment.
As of July 2023, the average lifespan of "specialized, refined, and new" small and medium-sized enterprises is 16 years, while the average lifespan of Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises is only around 3 years. This data precisely confirms that enterprises known for innovation require time to incubate, and their growth cannot be separated from patient capital. Private capital has always been a barometer of market expectations and a key force in nurturing innovation and industries. Cultivating more patient capital requires further stimulating the investment vitality and confidence of private capital. Xu Xiang stated that the market needs to form a group of long-term investors who can weather market cycles, and private enterprises and private capital must play an important role.
According to data from the China Federation of Industrial Economics, 25 large private enterprises such as Tencent, Lenovo, and Xiaomi have invested in nearly 400 national and provincial-level "specialized, refined, new" small and medium-sized enterprises through industrial investment. Large enterprises empower invested companies through industrial resource endowments, supply chain advantages, and global market influence, with these investments often focusing not on short-term financial returns but on long-term benefits and synergies.
Last year, the National Development and Reform Commission released a batch of typical investment cases of platform enterprises. The data shows that large platform enterprises in China have increased their investment efforts, building a technological innovation ecosystem, supporting innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises along the innovation chain, with investments in areas such as chips, autonomous driving, new energy, and agriculture continuously increasing.
For instance, Tencent continues to invest in supporting Suiyuan Technology, strengthening the development of core businesses such as cloud-based computing power platforms in the field of artificial intelligence, promoting the research and commercialization of domestically produced high-performance AI chips; Meituan invests in supporting future robotics companies, applying core technologies such as artificial intelligence, environmental perception, deep learning, and servo control to the industrial field of unmanned driving...
Encouraging digital technology companies to cultivate more innovative momentum
"Hong Yongmiao said, "A new round of technological and industrial revolutions is flourishing, with a series of disruptive technological innovations giving birth to new products, new formats, and new models. China is different in this new industrial revolution compared to previous ones and is already in a leading position globally in some aspects."
Without higher levels of technological innovation, there can be no talk of developing new productive forces. Enterprises are the main body of technological innovation. Digital technology companies value basic research, promote the application of advanced digital technologies, and have a responsibility to layout and cultivate emerging industries and future industries, seizing the strategic high ground of international competition.
In his speech, Wang Yiming stated, "We need to shift from past integrated innovation to relying more on original innovation, requiring strengthened forward-looking basic research. Companies are also increasing their investment in basic research, with Tencent investing over 60 billion yuan in R&D annually, with a portion allocated to basic research. We need breakthroughs in basic research to drive major breakthroughs in leading original achievements and strategic technological products, positioning ourselves at the forefront internationally in more fields.
Looking at innovation inputs, Chinese digital enterprises represented by Huawei and Tencent have maintained high growth in R&D investment for multiple years, with both companies ranking among the top twenty globally in innovation investment; in terms of driving applications, Huawei has ranked first globally in patent applications for multiple years, while Tencent's total global patent applications exceed 75,000, second only to Google among internet companies; in terms of future layout, Chinese digital technology companies are actively deploying in areas such as quantum, future networks, intelligent robots, creating long-term technological engines; in terms of global competition, ByteDance has become the world's most valuable unicorn...
Facing international competition in the digital age, experts call for fully leveraging the role of enterprises, especially private enterprises, as the main innovators. Private enterprises are the main entities in major technological innovations and applications in the digital field, providing strong incentives for enterprise technological innovation and the transformation of technological achievements.
The Business School of Renmin University of China recently released a report on "Digital Technology Invention Patents of Platform Enterprises." The report points out that key digital technologies, represented by artificial intelligence, are becoming the "main battlefield" for innovation research and development of Chinese and American technology platform enterprises. Chinese technology platform enterprises represented by Tencent and Baidu have rapidly caught up with and even surpassed international enterprises in terms of patent scale, quality, and distribution in the technology field.
The report suggests that to further enhance the competitiveness of domestic technology platform enterprises, more space should be created for enterprise research and development innovation. By optimizing the development environment of the platform economy, providing a safety net for the innovation of technology platform enterprises, and promoting more technological achievements to be transformed into tangible new productive forces.
