A man interacts with an intelligent robot. [Photo provided to gofujian.com]

The 7th Digital China Summit concluded in Fuzhou on May 25 after a successful run. The summit saw the signing of 421 digital economic project agreements with a total investment of 203 billion yuan ($28.02 billion), focusing on digital industries, the industrialization and commercialization of products, and new infrastructure to boost Fujian's digital economy.

The event showcased new technologies and products, saw the signing of significant digital economic projects, and hosted 13 forums on data resources, security, economy, and governance, among other topics. The National Bureau of Statistics and relevant departments presented 20 typical cases on “Data Elements X” , which refers to the data resources that can realize value creation and value exchange through digital conversion, network transmission and intelligent processing in the digital economy, highlighting their role in driving economic and social development.

The summit also featured intelligent robots, which demonstrated skills like calligraphy, chess-playing, and AI portrait-drawing, attracting numerous onlookers. To engage the public, over 40 digital application scenarios were created in Fuzhou using AI and metaverse technologies, offering visitors a taste of the future.

The "Digital China Development Report (2023)" unveiled at the summit revealed that China's digital economy maintained robust growth in 2023, with the value added by core digital economy industries accounting for 10 percent of GDP. The data element market is becoming increasingly dynamic, with total data production reaching 32.85 zettabytes in 2023 (1 ZB equals approximately 10 trillion gigabytes), 22.44 percent year-on-year growth. The expansion and acceleration of digital infrastructure has continued, with the total computing power reaching 230 EFLOPS, the second highest in the world. Eflops are a unit measuring the speed of computer systems and is equal to one quintillion floating-point operations per second.

The Digital China Summit marks a major effort to implement the plan for the overall layout of the country's digital development laid out by the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council. The summit has been held every year since 2018, with this year's event focusing on unlocking the value of data elements and developing new quality productive forces, advancing the digital transformation and development of China's economy.