Capital to become major data hub

Beijing will become China's big data and cloud computing innovation center by 2020. To accomplish this, the local authorities said the city will complete related development projects and cultivate more than 500 firms in the sector.

The big data and cloud computing industry will reach a total output of more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) by then, according to a government plan announced by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology on August 19.

"More than 90 percent of governmental departments will open their data to the public, which will increase the efficiency of data usage," said Mao Dongjun, deputy dead of the commission.

By the end of June, the Beijing governmental data resources website, which provides 400,000 pieces of original data, had more than 100 million hits with around 45,000 downloads.

The city will build more than 10 pilot big data and cloud computing projects in the following four years to accelerate the progress of the industry.

In addition to opening the data, Mao said the capital will establish an electronic photo and license system based on citizens' IDs, which will help to provide one-stop governmental service to citizens for various documents, paperwork and approval processes.

"People used to have to go to many departments to get one thing done," he said. "The government is working on this system to save their time and energy and meanwhile protect their personal information."

According to the plan, the data will also be used in other fields including medical treatment, healthcare, education and tourism.

Beijing's unique advantage in building itself into a big data center is that more than 60 percent of China's big data companies are located in the city.

Many educational institutions and hospitals, which have accumulated a huge amount of useful data, are in Beijing.

More importantly, as the political center of the country, Beijing has many national ministries and commissions which have created huge demand for using their data.

(China Daily 09/03/2016 page21)