Digital Technology Transforms China’s Mountainous Province

China’s burgeoning digital economy has not only revolutionised the lives of urbanites with emerging technologies but also transformed the country’s rural areas.

China’s burgeoning digital economy has not only revolutionised the lives of urbanites with emerging technologies but also transformed the country’s rural areas.

Southwest China’s Guizhou Province was home to 9.23 million registered impoverished residents in 2012, making it the provincial-level region with the largest poor population in the country.

That’s, however, a thing of the past. The province has eliminated absolute poverty and become the country’s major big data hub in just a decade.

In February, China started work on the project to build an integrated national big data system involving the establishment of eight national computing hubs and 10 national data center clusters.

Computing hubs

Guizhou is one of the eight national computing hubs.

An increasing number of big data and other technological projects have boosted Guizhou’s digital economy.

According to a development report on China’s digital economy released in early July, the valueadded output of the digital economy in Guizhou increased by 20.6 per cent year on year in 2021, and the growth rate was 4.4 per centage points higher than the national average, ranking first in the country for seven consecutive years.

Farmers benefitting

At a plantation base, established in 2018, in Tunshang Village of Pu’an County, an LED display screen installed outdoors shows the temperature, humidity and soil condition.

The growth of the tea is tracked in real time by dozens of digital devices installed at the base, offering data support for scientific management and protection of the tea garden.

DATA HUB Photo: Xinhua / Ou Dongqu A staff member watches a big-data animation on an LED screen at the exhibition center of the national big data comprehensive pilot zone in southwest China’s Guizhou Province, May 26, 2022.