Leveraging the advantages of the digital economy to support high-quality development of digital technology

Authors: Xue Yingjie and Qu Manxue

Currently, China's economy is facing triple pressures of demand contraction, supply shock, and weakened expectations. How to seize opportunities and promote high-quality economic development with new impetus has become an important issue of social concern. At a critical moment of deep global economic adjustment, competition among countries around the world is intensifying, and the new round of technological revolution has given rise to the digital economy, which has become the main battlefield for major powers to seize the commanding heights. Vigorously developing the digital economy to promote high-quality development is not only an opportunity given by the times, but also faces numerous challenges. The key lies in relying on technological revolution and industrial transformation to promote the transformation of old and new driving forces.

At the 6th Digital China Construction Achievement Exhibition, staff introduced the digital university intelligent brain comprehensive management platform to visitors. Shen Jizhong

1. The digital economy plays an important role in high-quality development

Developing the digital economy is conducive to stimulating domestic market demand. The rapid development of the digital economy provides diversified application platforms and rich consumption scenarios, which can stimulate consumer potential and create incremental consumption demand. Firstly, the rapid penetration of digital applications has promoted the development of the service industry, breaking the constraints of time and space in traditional consumer markets. It not only provides consumers with diverse consumption choices and shopping channels, but also reduces the degree of information asymmetry between buyers and sellers. For example, entertainment platforms promote products to consumers through live streaming, which combines entertainment and sales. This marketing model greatly stimulates the consumption potential of consumers. Secondly, the deepening of digital technology applications can not only tap into consumer preferences and provide personalized services, but also cultivate consumer online consumption habits, which is conducive to optimizing consumption structure. On the one hand, consumers can express their personalized needs through e-commerce platforms. After obtaining product order information, producers can tailor corresponding products according to consumer requirements, providing consumers with high-quality product services; On the other hand, e-commerce platforms can also analyze the consumption history of consumers, explore their potential demand preferences, and recommend relevant products based on demand preferences to better meet the consumer experience.

Developing the digital economy is beneficial for optimizing resource allocation. Optimizing resource allocation is essential for high-quality development. With the continuous penetration of digital technology in economic development, the ability to allocate resources in both factor markets and product markets has been enhanced. On the one hand, digital platforms promote the reshaping of factor flow mechanisms, accelerate the integration of online and offline resources, and significantly improve the efficiency of resource allocation in the factor market. For example, the application of digital technology can reduce market search costs, bargaining costs, information communication costs, and operational costs, promote cross regional flow of capital and labor, and thus improve the market matching efficiency of capital and labor. At the same time, the development of the digital economy will also lead to more workers moving towards technology intensive jobs, choosing more flexible working conditions, and promoting flexible employment. On the other hand, the continuous popularization of digital technology in enterprises can help them timely grasp consumption preferences, adjust expected deviations, improve the matching degree of production and consumption, reduce the degree of supply and demand information asymmetry, and thus avoid resource mismatch and waste.

Developing the digital economy helps accelerate green transformation. The integration of digital economy and green industry can accelerate green transformation and help achieve carbon peak and carbon neutrality goals. The digital economy can improve resource utilization and reduce carbon emissions. Shared products such as shared bicycles and ride hailing services can help cultivate public awareness of sharing, making green and low-carbon modes of transportation increasingly popular. The innovation and popularization of digital technology applications make it easier to track, detect, and regulate carbon emissions, which is conducive to promoting carbon emission trading and pricing. In the era of digital economy, new media and self media have become important channels for information dissemination. By actively promoting the concept and specific practices of green development, they can guide consumers to enhance their awareness of energy conservation and environmental protection, promote green consumption, and help achieve the dual carbon goals.

Developing the digital economy is beneficial for adjusting industrial structure and promoting industrial upgrading. In the continuous development of the digital economy, its contribution to economic growth has gradually increased, playing an important role in adjusting industrial structure and promoting industrial upgrading. On the one hand, with the continuous advancement of digital industrialization, high-end technology industries, such as electronic information manufacturing, telecommunications, software and information technology services, and the Internet industry, have contributed more and more to economic growth, promoting the transformation of economic growth from labor-intensive to technology intensive. On the other hand, the digitization of industries is also accelerating, and the digital economy has made outstanding contributions to improving the quality and efficiency of traditional industries, greatly improving their operational efficiency.

2. The challenges faced by the digital economy in promoting high-quality development

The digital economy is an important component of the modern economic system, the forefront of the world's technological revolution and industrial transformation, and a key area of the new round of international competition, reflecting the comprehensive strength of countries in the digital age. In theory, the core driving force of the digital economy in promoting high-quality development is to promote the replacement of new and old production factors and production methods, and to promote the integration of various resources with its high innovation, strong penetration, and wide coverage characteristics, achieving the interconnection of industrial chains, effectively reducing information friction, helping upstream and downstream enterprises optimize production capacity, upgrade and transform, and becoming an important engine leading high-quality economic development. However, the many problems and challenges faced by the digital economy in promoting high-quality development cannot be ignored.

Firstly, insufficient innovation capabilities in key areas have led to difficulties in upgrading core technologies. The digital economy is an emerging economy driven by innovation. To support high-quality development with the digital economy, advanced science and technology must be the support, and a continuous stream of innovation must be the driving force. At present, the innovation of China's digital economy mainly focuses on business models and applications, with insufficient innovation capabilities in the fields of original innovation and basic research. In addition, the blockade and suppression of core technologies such as chips by Western countries such as the United States have exacerbated the bottleneck problem of China's digital technology in the short term. Therefore, the situation where China lags behind developed countries such as the United States and Japan in core technology innovation has not completely changed, and the contribution of core technologies to the digital economy is still relatively low.

Secondly, the imbalance between the digital divide and high-quality development is prominent. The purpose of digital economy to promote high-quality development is to meet the growing needs of the people for a better life, so that everyone can equally and fully enjoy the dividends of digital economy development. However, in the context of urban-rural dual economic structure and population aging, the problem of imbalanced and insufficient development of the digital economy remains prominent. Rural areas lag behind cities in terms of digital infrastructure construction, network popularization, and digital literacy, leading to the relative marginalization of rural households in the digital age, making it difficult for them to equally benefit from the development of the digital economy. From the perspective of the size of Internet users, the size of urban Internet users far exceeds that of rural Internet users. In 2021, the size of urban Internet users in China will reach 714 million, and the Internet penetration rate will be 78.3%, while the size of rural Internet users will be only 297 million, and the Internet penetration rate will be 59.2%. In the digital age, new technologies, products, and applications are updated rapidly, while the elderly population has a slow adaptation speed and poor acceptance ability to smart devices and smart living. They often cannot adapt to new scenarios and technologies in a timely manner.

3. The path of digital economy promoting high-quality development

The digital economy is related to the overall development of the country. To support high-quality development with the digital economy, we must seize the historical opportunities of the digital era, actively respond to a series of challenges such as insufficient innovation capabilities in key areas leading to difficulties in upgrading core technologies, imbalanced digital development, and the digital divide, and seek the optimal path for the digital economy to support high-quality development.

Adhere to innovation driven and promote the reform of the scientific and technological system. Adhering to innovation and leading the development of the digital economy is an important guarantee for achieving high-quality development, with a focus on solving the bottleneck problem of technology and breaking free from the situation where core technology is constrained by others. Technological innovation is a systematic project based on talent, led by scientific research, and led by enterprises. It requires continuous promotion of scientific and technological system reform, improvement of the innovation environment, mobilization of the enthusiasm of innovation subjects, and improvement of innovation quality and efficiency. To this end, one is to strengthen the cultivation of talents and funding investment in the field of basic research, and establish an evaluation mechanism that conforms to the laws of basic research. Especially for universities and research institutes, the evaluation criteria should focus on academic contribution and innovative value, explore the implementation of long-term evaluation, and create a good research atmosphere for researchers. The second is to improve the distribution system and innovate incentive policies. Establish a sound system for the distribution of production factors based on their contributions, provide corresponding tax incentives to innovative enterprises, ensure the implementation of preferential policies, and strengthen the evaluation and review of innovative achievements. The third is to optimize the financing model of enterprises and improve the fault tolerance mechanism for major projects. The long R&D cycle, high capital demand, and high risk in core areas are important reasons that constrain enterprise innovation. To stimulate enterprise innovation enthusiasm, a new financing model of "private equity+loans+insurance protection+financial risk compensation" should be established, and the fault tolerance mechanism for major innovation projects should be improved. Innovation achievements should be combined with job promotion and salary levels, and institutional incentives should be used to strengthen independent innovation, help enterprises incubate innovative products, and improve innovation efficiency.

Establish sound laws and regulations, and improve the governance system of the digital economy. Promoting high-quality development should be based on the healthy operation of the digital economy, establishing sound laws and regulations, improving the governance system of the digital economy, and regulating the development of the digital economy. One is to improve the market access system, fair competition review system, and fair competition supervision system, establish a comprehensive, multi-level, and three-dimensional regulatory system, and timely correct and regulate behaviors and practices that harm the interests of the people and hinder fair competition in the development process. The second is to improve regulatory technology, cover regulatory blind spots, focus on building a regulatory system that is compatible with the development of the digital economy, actively identify illegal activities in e-commerce consumption, services, payments, and other fields, and create a healthy and efficient environment for the development of the digital economy. The third is to strengthen research on data security technology and promote the development and utilization of data security. Further improve the governance of the digital economy, adhere to the balance between data security and development, take national security, public security, and personal privacy security as the bottom line, reasonably grasp the boundaries of data application openness, and promote the flow and utilization of data resources.

Resolve differences in data development and utilization, and promote the upgrading of traditional industries. The fundamental to high-quality development lies in enhancing economic vitality, innovation, and competitiveness, and promoting the upgrading of traditional industries. The key to promoting the upgrading of traditional industries in the digital economy is to address differences in data development and utilization, and promote the free flow of data. Firstly, accelerate the construction of infrastructure in fields such as 5G networks, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, promote the process of digital industry, open up information channels for high-quality economic development, focus on solving relevant problems related to data circulation from the top-level design, and promote the all-round flow of digital resources. Secondly, encourage social forces to fully tap into the potential value hidden in digital resources, promote the productization and service-oriented transformation of data value, and promote the deep integration of data, technology, and scenarios. Finally, utilizing digital means to comprehensively transform traditional industries, promoting the deep penetration of digital technology into industry, agriculture, and service industries, incubating new business formats with digital technology, establishing high-level coordination platforms, improving the adaptability of technology applications to industry needs, and assisting in the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries.

Guangming Daily

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