—An interview with Wei Jigang, Deputy Director of the Institute of Market Economy under the Development Research Center of the State Council
■ Zhang Yiming, reporter for China Economic Times
With the rise of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation characterized by digitalization and intelligentization, the development of digital and intelligent infrastructure (hereinafter referred to as "digital-intelligent infrastructure"), as an important component of new quality productive forces, has become a focus of public attention. Why should China vigorously promote the construction of digital-intelligent infrastructure at this time, what problems does it face in the process, and in what areas should it focus its efforts? Regarding these questions, a China Economic Times reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Wei Jigang, Deputy Director of the Institute of Market Economy under the Development Research Center of the State Council.
China Economic Times: What signal does China's high attention to digital-intelligent infrastructure send?
Wei Jigang:At present, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, characterized by digitalization and intelligentization, while giving birth to digital-intelligent infrastructure, has also promoted the digital transformation and intelligent upgrading of traditional infrastructure. Countries around the world, especially developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan, are vigorously laying out digital-intelligent infrastructure and continuously upgrading their strategic versions in order to reshape their technological competitive advantages and comprehensive national strength. China is a major country in infrastructure construction. Facing all-round changes in demand, technology and competition in the global infrastructure construction field, it is all the more necessary for China to accelerate the promotion of digital-intelligent infrastructure construction.
As an important pole of global digital-intelligent innovation, in recent years China has continuously improved the level of cultivating innovation entities and continuously enhanced its capacity to gather innovation factors. Some digital-intelligent technologies have reached the world's advanced level, and the digital-intelligent industry has a good development foundation. At the same time, the process of Chinese-style modernization has increased the endogenous demand for digital-intelligent infrastructure, and the proportion of infrastructure digital-intelligentization in the scale of infrastructure investment is gradually expanding. China needs large-scale digital-intelligent infrastructure support to endow traditional infrastructure with digital-intelligent capabilities. In addition, China also has a complete industrial system. The industrial internet has been integrated into 49 categories of the national economy and covers 41 major industrial categories. The development of the industrial internet shows the characteristics of high integration, intelligentization and ecologicalization, and is gradually transforming from single-point applications to deep integration across the entire industrial chain. All of these have created conditions for China to vigorously develop digital-intelligent infrastructure.
China Economic Times: At present, what problems still exist in the development of China's digital-intelligent infrastructure?
Wei Jigang:The development of digital-intelligent infrastructure plays multiple roles—it is overarching, strategic, foundational, long-term, pioneering, leading and driving—and is an important lever for building a modern powerful country. On the new journey toward modernization, the development of digital-intelligent infrastructure faces both rare strategic opportunities and some challenges.
First, the overall coordination of infrastructure development is insufficient.Infrastructure development is generally relatively extensive, with weak systematization, a low degree of integration and poor interconnectivity. A unified planning, division-of-labor linkage and functional complementarity interactive relationship has not yet been formed among various types of infrastructure. The structure is not entirely reasonable, with emphasis on hardware and neglect of software, and obvious imbalances in spatial layout.
Second, the core technologies of digital-intelligent infrastructure urgently need to be improved.Infrastructure operating systems, PLC core control systems, pipeline monitoring technologies and others are heavily dependent on imports. More than 300 key technologies, including high-end chips, industrial control software, core components and basic algorithms, still need innovation. The industrialization application, engineering promotion and commercial operation of digital technologies lack systematic advancement.
Third, there is still great room for development in infrastructure digital-intelligentization.The degree of integration between the digital and real economies in industry is uneven, and the level of digital-intelligentization shows a pattern of "strong in one aspect and weak in two." The degree of integration still lags considerably behind that of developed countries.
China Economic Times: In the next step, how should China promote the leapfrog development of its digital-intelligent infrastructure?
Wei Jigang:In the new era, it is necessary to adapt to new situations, new tasks and new requirements, plan the development of digital-intelligent infrastructure within the overall context of building a powerful country, and strive to build an infrastructure system that is "systematically complete, rationally structured, safe and reliable, convenient and efficient, intelligent and green, interconnected, inclusive for people's livelihoods, and internationally competitive." It is necessary to coordinate the process of digital-intelligent construction of infrastructure in various fields and, through the ubiquitous application of digital and intelligent technologies, continuously optimize infrastructure layout, structure, functions and system integration.
It is necessary to strengthen top-level design and make systematic arrangements at the national level for the goals, definitions, scope, status, roles, value, strategy, planning, design, investment and financing, construction, pricing, operation, maintenance, risks, supervision, laws, institutions, policies, standards, evaluation and governance of digital-intelligent infrastructure, and to clarify the key tasks of development.
It is necessary to comprehensively improve the digital-intelligent infrastructure system. This includes building digital-intelligent infrastructure typically characterized by integrated innovation in perception power, computing power, connectivity power, transport power, storage power, intelligence power and green power, and creating an integrated digital-intelligent infrastructure system. It is necessary to build a multi-dimensional ubiquitous and open interconnected perception network, support the promotion of large-scale application of "AI+" industry empowerment platforms, and accelerate the digital transformation and intelligent upgrading of traditional industries. In addition, it is necessary to give full play to the advantages of the integration of ICT and artificial intelligence technologies, cultivate a new generation of infrastructure, and foster emerging industries and future industries.
It is necessary to implement categorized policies, take major projects as the driving force, and achieve breakthroughs first in key regions, key industries and key scenarios. This includes creating an architecture for the digital-intelligent infrastructure perception network system, accelerating the intensification, integration, digital-intelligentization and greening of infrastructure, and making industrial chains secure, governance refined and standards internationalized; advancing the construction of a single 10-gigabit all-optical city network, building a 10-gigabit optical network infrastructure system, empowering and promoting the development of all industries, and leading new experiences in residents' digital-intelligent life; building a nationally integrated computing power network system, constructing a number of urban computing power networks, promoting computing power interconnection, and activating the value of data elements; and building a number of artificial intelligence public computing power platforms, improving the data resource system, and establishing national-level datasets and national-level data training bases.
It is necessary to take leading enterprises as the starting point and give play to the multi-entity coordination mechanism of "government, industry, academia, research, finance, application and services." A development pattern for digital-intelligent infrastructure should be formed in which the government builds the platform, enterprises innovate, society invests and multiple parties participate. A systematic digital-intelligent infrastructure system should be established, R&D intensity should be increased, and domestic substitution of key technologies should be strengthened. Diversified investment and financing should be guided, overall government fiscal planning should be encouraged, large-scale long-term funds should be guided to invest continuously, the role of special bonds in leveraging social funds should be better brought into play, and supporting policy mechanisms for infrastructure should be built and improved.
It is necessary to deepen international cooperation on digital-intelligent infrastructure through high-level opening up. With the best business environment, actively attract top international digital-intelligent talent and advanced enterprises to invest and develop in China, fully leverage the Belt and Road Initiative and various foreign cooperation platforms, actively participate in global and regional digital-intelligent infrastructure governance, and promote the going-global of China's digital-intelligent infrastructure standards. Together with Global South countries, actively explore development paths for digital-intelligent infrastructure suited to their respective national conditions, share China's innovative practices and successful experience, and jointly promote the high-quality development and interconnection of digital-intelligent infrastructure between China and countries around the world.
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