Recently, the General Office of the Sichuan Provincial Government issued the Construction Plan for the Sichuan National Pilot Zone for Innovative Development of the Digital Economy. The plan sets out a series of goals to accelerate Sichuan's development into a leading province in digital economy innovation, and proposes five key tasks and 17 specific measures to speed up the creation of digital industry clusters with international influence and core competitiveness.

According to the plan, Sichuan will strive, through 3. to 5. years of effort, to achieve clustered development of new technologies and new business forms in the digital economy, compete for 1. to 2. national-level emerging industry clusters, cultivate about 10 leading enterprises in the digital economy ecosystem, and build about 10 industry benchmark large models with national influence. Digital transformation will be further promoted and become effective through the establishment of about 20 digital application scenario laboratories, about 200 provincial-level digital transformation promotion centers, and the cultivation of 200 advanced intelligent manufacturing factories. Sichuan also plans to build 3. to 5. national-level trusted data spaces and more than 10 provincial-level ones.

The five key tasks are: actively exploring new mechanisms for the development of digital industry clusters and building a new pattern of regional linkage and tiered development; accelerating the improvement of the digital and intelligent technology innovation system and planning new digital technologies, new tracks, and new business forms; comprehensively building a digital transformation promotion network and advancing the deep integration of the digital economy with the real economy; continuously optimizing the data infrastructure system and consolidating the foundation for data circulation and utilization; and improving the policy system for digital governance to foster a healthy ecosystem for digital economy development.

Coordinated development across the whole province

The plan proposes strengthening coordinated development across the whole province and promoting the overall layout of the province's digital industry through a model of building circles, strengthening chains, and one cluster across multiple locations. The goal is to build an important national digital industry concentration area, jointly foster a digital industrial ecosystem, and promote data element-driven development, innovation resource sharing, and coordination among emerging industries across the province, thereby forming a tiered pattern of digital industry cluster development featuring one core leading, five zones advancing together, and overall province-wide expansion. Sichuan will enhance the comprehensive carrying capacity of industries such as intelligent equipment, new software, industrial internet, data security, and data infrastructure in cities including Chengdu, Mianyang, and Yibin, and build high-level comprehensive digital empowerment platforms. It will also explore new business forms and models such as digital logistics, the digital low-altitude economy, digital new energy, and intelligent connected vehicles. The province will promote reform in the approval, filing, regulation, and service models for digital cultural and creative enterprise products, and implement a digital content innovation project. It will build a professional selection and cultivation model integrating government, enterprises, innovation, and finance, and establish a cultivation pool for digital innovation enterprises. Relying on the construction of provincial-level digital industry clusters, Sichuan will attract various innovation resources and create an innovation ecosystem conducive to the specialized, distinctive, and industrialized development of digital innovation enterprises.

Planning new tracks for future industries

In terms of planning new tracks, Sichuan will implement major science and technology projects such as artificial intelligence, focus on key directions including specialized chips, large models, and intelligent terminals such as robots, low-altitude intelligent products, and brain-computer interface products, and make every effort to break through key core technologies in areas such as advanced computing, embodied intelligence, low-altitude intelligence, and brain-inspired intelligence. It will also carry out scientific and technological research on key basic materials, core components and parts, and end products. The province will support exploration of new models for transforming digital science and technology achievements, as well as long-term cooperation mechanisms featuring complementary advantages, benefit sharing, and risk sharing among multiple parties.

Sichuan will also make forward-looking plans for new tracks in future industries, build scientific data centers, and explore the establishment of a concentrated plus distributed management and service system for key science and technology. It will advance the construction of high-level innovation platforms such as the Chengdu-Chongqing Xinglong Lake Comprehensive Science Center and Tianfu Jiangxi Laboratory, and accelerate the layout of future industries including 6G, or sixth-generation mobile communication technology, quantum technology, terahertz, millimeter waves, brain science, and the metaverse. The province will vigorously develop the low-altitude economy and support qualified areas in building demonstration zones for the low-altitude economy. It will strengthen the opening and construction of application scenarios in emerging fields and accelerate the large-scale commercialization of new technologies and products. Sichuan will develop the data industry, formulate and implement a plan for cultivating and identifying data enterprises in Sichuan, and carry out the warehousing and identification of data enterprises. It will cultivate new business forms in the platform economy, accelerate the development of a number of leading platform enterprises, and promote high-quality development of platform economy industrial chains. Focusing on key fields such as digital education, digital employment, digital transportation, digital trade, digital finance, online freight, and industrial internet, the province will accelerate the cultivation of a number of vertical industry enterprises with strong leading and driving effects. Financial institutions are encouraged to innovate financial products and service models tailored to the characteristics of platform enterprises.

Deep development of the integration of the digital and real economies

Sichuan will promote the large-scale application of digital scenarios. It will explore the establishment of digital application scenario laboratories and form a new diversified cooperation mechanism featuring government guidance, enterprise leadership, diversified investment, and market-based operation. The province will promote the application of innovative scenarios suited to digital government, the digital economy, and digital society. It will implement an artificial intelligence action plan, with a focus on applying artificial intelligence in fields such as scientific research, manufacturing, services, commerce, cultural tourism, and healthcare. It will also accelerate the construction of a new-generation earthquake early warning network characterized by digital and intelligent technology, ubiquitous perception, and big data, and build a collaborative, data-integrated credit enhancement system for small and micro enterprises.

The province will implement a digital transformation project, further advance the intelligent upgrading and digital transformation of manufacturing, continue building provincial-level digital transformation promotion centers for regions, industrial parks, and clusters, formulate evaluation standards for the service capabilities of digital transformation service providers, and promote precise matching and customized services. It will also advance the integration of the channel network, logistics network, and data network, and carry out innovations in railway customs clearance and transit models for export goods on the China-Europe Railway Express, Chengdu-Chongqing route.

Sichuan will launch pilot programs for citywide digital transformation, promote digital reform to improve government efficiency, and drive digital transformation and intelligent upgrading in public services, life services, and social governance. It will advance the construction of urban infrastructure lifeline safety projects, make coordinated deployment of urban intelligent sensing terminals, and carry out pilot projects for building intelligent urban operation hubs.

Optimizing the data infrastructure system

Sichuan will continue advancing the construction of the national hub node of the integrated national computing power network in Sichuan. Supported by the Tianfu data center cluster, it will accelerate the development of large and super-large data centers, urban data centers, and edge data centers, thereby building a multi-level computing power infrastructure system.

The province will also promote pilot-first trials in data infrastructure. In accordance with national requirements for unified catalog identification, unified identity registration, and unified interfaces, it will build the underlying infrastructure for data circulation and utilization, enabling low-threshold access, large-scale circulation, and efficient and secure use of data. Pilot-first efforts will be carried out in areas such as data fields, data networks, trusted data spaces, blockchain, and privacy-preserving computing. Sichuan will conduct national pilot projects for the security of computing facilities in the integrated national computing power network, and explore the establishment of data security shooting ranges to provide real network simulation and verification environments for scientific research and market application in data security protection.

Sichuan will further advance pilot projects integrating computing and electricity, strengthen the coordination between data center cluster construction and the development of new energy and power grid infrastructure, and promote the integrated and coordinated layout of clean energy bases and data center clusters. It will also promote the integrated development of green electricity and computing power, and support clean energy-rich areas in locally laying out industrial parks that combine green electricity, computing power, and industry. The province will optimize the energy consumption structure of data centers and encourage greater use of renewable energy through participation in green electricity trading and green electricity certificate trading.

It will support the access of various local computing power resources to computing power scheduling service platforms, promote accurate matching between the supply and demand sides of computing power resources, establish transaction standards for computing power resources and a pricing system for computing power products, and build collaborative mechanisms for computing power allocation, transaction settlement, and benefit distribution. The province also encourages the issuance of computing power vouchers to improve the utilization, inclusiveness, and ease of use of computing power resources.

In addition, regarding the improvement of digital governance, the plan proposes activating the value of data elements, exploring a mechanism in which public data operation revenue is fed back into public service development, carrying out pilot projects for full-process management of data assets in administrative and public institutions, establishing new mechanisms that empower economic and social governance with digitalization and informatization, carrying out pilot projects for data security insurance and important data processing networks, and exploring new models for cross-border data flows.

Source: Chengdu Daily Jingguan News