Beijing is continuing to develop the digital economy, with the sector contributing more than 40% of the city’s GDP. The digital economy generated CNY426.57 billion in industrial value during the first quarter, representing a 7.6% increase from the same period of 2022. That accounted for 42.9% of the city’s GDP, a year- on-year rise of 1.7 percentage points. The industrial value of the information and communications, software and information technology service sectors jumped 12% year-on-year to CNY213.47 billion during the period, contributing 21.5% to the city’s GDP. Rich in scientific and technological resources, Beijing is going all out to build itself into an international sci-tech center. The city is an innovation pacesetter and industrial forerunner in China’s digitalization progress, said Pan Feng, Deputy Director of the Beijing Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, at a think tank forum in Beijing in mid-April.
Back in 1999, the city proposed the concept of “digital Beijing”. In 2008 and 2022 when Beijing hosted the Summer and Winter Olympic Games respectively, a batch of digital technologies, which were applied to the events, were showcased. In 2012, Beijing initiated a smart city program, spurring the growth of related industries. Beijing ramped up construction of a global digital economy benchmark city two years ago. It issued an implementation plan for advancing the initiative in July 2021 and released regulations to promote the digital economy in November 2022, setting the development of a global digital economy benchmark city as a strategic goal. As one of the cities that has the most abundant digital economic resources and the most favorable development conditions in the world, Beijing pioneered the development of the digital economy and has taken the lead in the sector. The digital economy has become a major engine to drive the growth of the local economy, Chinese media reported.
The digital economy's proportion in the city’s GDP expanded from 35.2% to 41.6% over the past seven years, registering an average annual growth rate of 10.3%. Beijing'a industries of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, IT application innovations, and the industrial internet, all rank first nationally in terms of industrial output value, local officials said. AI and the industrial internet in Beijing are capable of generating more than CNY100 billion in industrial output value. When it comes to the integrated circuit equipment industry, the city has developed the largest industrial cluster of its kind in the country. Its monthly production capacity of 12-inch silicon wafers ranks first nationally and fifth globally. The city has the largest number of national-level intelligent manufacturing system solution providers in the country.
Eight Beijing-based companies made the latest list of the top 100 digital companies, released by Forbes, accounting for more than half of the Chinese companies on the list, the China Daily reports.
