digital economy has become an important engine for the high-quality development of in my country. According to the data of the 2021 Global Digital Economy Conference, the scale of my country's digital economy has ranked second in the world for many consecutive years.
What are the advantages of developing digital economy in my country? How does
promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy?
Recently, the "CIIDS Dialogue" invited Lv Benfu, vice president of the China Innovation Association and professor of the School of Economics and Management of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, to give an in-depth interpretation on the characteristics of China's development of the digital economy, the integration of the digital economy and the real economy, and international cooperation in the digital economy.
CIIDS: You mentioned in the previous interview that the development of the digital economy or the dividends brought by the digital economy is the biggest driving force for China's economic development in the next stage. In your opinion, what advantages or characteristics does my country have in developing the digital economy?
Lv Benfu: We know that China's economy has grown rapidly for 40 years, and different stages have different sources of power. For example, in the past 20 years, urbanization may be one of the most important drivers of economic development. In the stage of high-quality development, the academic community believes that the digital economy may be the biggest source of power. Combining different statistical calibers, we can find that the digital economy has accounted for nearly 50% of China's GDP , which means that most industries are now related to the digital economy. Therefore, as a main source of development power, the digital economy may be the protagonist of the next stage.
Obviously, China's development of the digital economy has a very important feature or advantage, which we call the "giant country effect".Why is there a "giant country effect"? For example, compared to China and India, why is Indian e-commerce not developing as well as China? In India, each state has to pay taxes for logistics, so can logistics still be done? In China, we have a huge market with unified laws; almost every one of us has one or two mobile phones, which are basically connected to the Internet, and have a unified operating platform; our infrastructure is relatively complete. Infrastructure, unified laws, and the unified operation of several major platforms constitute the "giant country effect" of the digital economy.
but the United States is not the same, its Amazon is internationalized. As far as a single country is concerned, China has the most advantage in developing the digital economy, which is unmatched by other countries, especially the application-based digital economy, such as e-commerce, social media, and so on.
CIIDS: What do you think is the relationship between the digital economy and the real economy? In the process of integrating the digital economy and the real economy, which industries and industries will seize the opportunity?
Lv Benfu: The relationship between the digital economy and the real economy is not contradictory, but complementary. The digital economy has some original values of its own. The so-called original value means that it does not necessarily need the support of the real economy, such as online games, metaverse, digital twins, etc. These are the native values of the digital economy growing in the virtual space, but this is only part of the digital economy. Most of the digital economy needs to be integrated with the real economy. Without the real economy, there is no digital economy.
In the process of integrating the digital economy and the real economy, what are the key points that need to be considered? The first point of
, how to make the fusion of the two have the effect of 1+1>2.In terms of the integration of the real economy and the digital economy, what are the value goals of enterprises? For real enterprises, a very basic purpose is whether the development of the digital economy can bring benefits; there are also enterprises to provide better customer service. We call it value guidance. The second point is that changes in the organization's strategic process need to be considered in the integration process. For example, if I have a artificial intelligence editing system, which can undertake the editing work, then my editing process will change, and I will consider which part should be done manually and which part should be replaced by artificial intelligence. This is the process and strategy. Variety. The third point, the point of fusion is culture. There will be conflicts between cultures. The corporate culture of the digital economy, for example, staking a horse first, occupying as much land as possible, and then cultivating it further. But the real economy is different, it needs to consider the annual profit, so the two are culturally different.
Therefore, it is necessary to solve the three aspects of value positioning, process reorganization and cultural integration, so that the digital economy and the real economy can be better integrated. In the process of
integration, which industry or industry will seize the opportunity? I think there is a big difference between different fusion methods. The development of
digital economy can be roughly divided into four stages. The first stage is called the informatization stage, probably before 2010. Informatization before 2010, the most powerful platform, such as portal websites, three major portals, and search engines, is to put the information that was in the mind and on paper in the computer in the past. The second stage is the stage of platformization. When the introduction of smart phones in 2012, it entered the stage of platformization. At this time, the core is the mobile Internet. China has produced several important head platforms, 4 million apps, and about 1.5 million small programs. The third stage we call intelligence, or cognitive revolution, refers to the use of artificial intelligence to transform various industries, which will start in 2018.The fourth stage is the so-called " metaverse " that started last year. The integration goals of these four stages of
are different. For example, in the first informatization stage, the informatization of many small and medium-sized enterprises may not have been completed, and a large amount of data has not been entered into the computer, and there is no informatization management. Therefore, China's development at this stage is still very unbalanced. The second stage of
is platformization, that is, enterprises enter a certain platform and connect with users. Directly finding users is the biggest advantage of the platform, but how to directly connect with users and how to change the marketing methods of enterprises are also issues that need to be considered in the process of integration. The so-called cognitiveization in the third stage of
refers to which processes can be replaced by artificial intelligence. For example, the quality inspection department of the manufacturing industry is very easy to achieve intelligence. Manual inspection will have problems such as easy fatigue and inspection accuracy, but artificial intelligence will not fatigue, and the accuracy rate is higher. Therefore, in the intelligent stage, it is necessary to consider which formats can be integrated to achieve intelligent harmony.
The fourth stage metaverse is a newly proposed concept. We think that experience-based industries such as the cultural tourism industry may be the first to be metaverse. For example, not everyone can climb the Himalayas, but the Metaverse can help you. Wind, breathing, etc. are the same as climbing a mountain.
Therefore, in different stages of digital economy development, the focus of integration or the way of integration are different.
CIIDS: At present, what are the shortcomings and the direction we need to work hard to develop the digital economy?
Lv Benfu: Of course, there are strengths and weaknesses. China's application-based digital economy is developing rapidly, but chips, industrial software, databases, etc. need us to make up for the lessons 20 years ago. Internationally, these aspects were completed about 20 years ago; China started from application, and in the context of current international competition, especially Sino-US relations, these lessons may need to be made up.
Secondly, the current platform enterprises are indeed relatively large, and the platform enterprises are large, which may involve many issues that need to be regulated. For example, the disorderly expansion of capital, anti-monopoly, mergers and acquisitions, etc., we all classify them as platform regulation issues.
Third, bubbles like the metaverse and blockchain are very powerful, and there are also chaos such as illegal fundraising. Some people think that the metaverse is very fashionable and digital currency is very fashionable, so they blindly follow the trend. These parts themselves have nothing to do with the digital economy, but are social issues that scam gangs use to hype up this concept.
These are all obstacles in the development of the digital economy, or problems that need to be solved.
CIIDS: How to carry out international cooperation in the digital economy in the context of the epidemic?
Lv Benfu: To carry out international cooperation in the field of digital economy, we must first face the security issues of the supply chain. Supply chain security has become a current focus. Taking and Huawei as an example, the United States cut off Huawei's chip supply on the grounds of national security. After 20 years of development of the digital economy, various countries in the world are integrated, such as chips, which country does the design, which country does the OEM, and which country does the manufacturing. In the past, there was a relatively complete industrial chain. Now the United States wants to dismantle this industrial chain out of the need to suppress, which is the biggest risk.
We talk about "one world, one dream", and the same is true for the online world, which is called "one world, one network". Whether the same world will become two networks or three networks is an important question.For example, Russia is making a Russian Internet. If every country makes its own Internet, is it still called the global Internet? Another example is that 5G is now a globally unified standard. Will there be two standards for 6G in the future? Does that mean we have to bring another US version of the phone when we go to the US? Wouldn't this cause a worldwide waste? Therefore, in terms of future international cooperation, we need to pay attention to two key points: one is whether the international supply chain will be destroyed; the other is whether the international technical standards are "one world, one network". As for the impact of the epidemic, it is still short-term.
Source: National Innovation and Development Strategy Research Association
Producer: Xiao Jin
Editor: Guo Chuang
