China sets up big data zone in Inner Mongolia

BEIJING - China unveiled Monday a big data zone being built in Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

The Inner Mongolia zone, centered at the regional capital Hohhot, is one of the seven under construction in China and will focus on analysing data on energy, meteorology and geology to help energy conservation and cooperation.

Xu Shaoshi, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the commission will draw up policies to bring big data products, industry, and technology to the zone. Businesses, research institutes, and universities are also encouraged to participate.

A number of information industry heavyweights including Alibaba, Baidu, China Telecom and Tencent have offices in the zone.

The authorities aim to make the Inner Mongolia big data zone North China's big data center and a leading global big data base by 2020.

According to a previous estimate, China will account for 20 percent of the world's data capacity by 2020.