"The Development of Big Data in Guizhou Certainly Makes Sense!"

The southwest Chinese province of Guizhou is growing into a big data development hub for the new era, becoming the first province in the country to boast government data infrastructure consisting of "one cloud, one network, and one platform" for the whole province, the first root server mirror node in China's central and western regions, and a hotspot of cloud-based business and living. 

On June 17, 2015, President Xi Jinping visited the Big Data Exhibition Center in Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou. The province's attempts to promote economic and social development by developing big data left a deep impression on the president, who commented, "I get it. The development of big data in Guizhou certainly makes sense." 

In the past, people used to quip about Guizhou that it doesn't have "three days of fine weather, three feet of flat land, or three coins to rub together." Today, however, the province's warm winters and cool summers, clean air, stable geology, cheap thermal and hydroelectric power, industrial bases, and skilled workforce have given it the requisite endowments for creating a big data development hub. 

The "space-time tunnel" at the exhibition center in Guizhou's National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone. PHOTO BY GUIZHOU DAILY MULTIMEDIA REPORTER ZHANG KAI 

Big Data + 'X' Factor = Enormous Potential 

This is the equation for understanding Guizhou's approach to big data. 

"In the past I worried about raising too many ducks in case I couldn't sell them. Since I connected to the cloud, selling them has not been a problem," explains Qu Hongxiang, an energetic duck farmer from Luoman Village in Songtao Miao Autonomous County of Tongren City. Smiling with his eyes, he adds, "Now I raise 70,000-80,000 ducks a year. They sell well, and I earn more." 

"Dad said that the recipes in the canteen are all on the cloud. There's more than even Mom knows how to make." In the canteen of Zhuchang Primary School in Qixingguan District of Bijie City, we met Fu Shenglong from Class 4 of Grade 5, who is a proper little adult and whose sister is in Grade 3 at the same school. Delivering lunch for them at school used to be one of their father's most important everyday duties, come rain or shine. "Now, Dad drops us at school in the morning, and picks us up after school in the afternoon. Mom and Dad don't need to worry about us and can go to work with their minds at ease." Fu Shenglong is very satisfied with the lunches provided in the cafeteria, and he happily points to his food as he explains, "Today I'm, eating scrambled eggs with green peppers, fried pork with mushrooms, cauliflower, and cabbage soup with vermicelli noodles." 

What sort of cloud computing stores information about ducks and recipes, you might ask? This is the Schooling and Farming Cloud. Guizhou's student nutrition information management big data service platform and the agricultural product production and marketing big data platform have been connected to create the Schooling and Farming Cloud. Based on the nutritional diet of students, food products can be purchased directly from contracted cooperatives and farmers, thereby guiding the industrial chain to cover the farming production activities of poor households. At one end, this is aimed at filling the mouths of children with safe, healthy, and tasty food by ensuring that recipes are nutritious, ingredients are fresh, and food is transported safely, while on the other end, it is aimed at filling the pockets of farmers and helping them make it out of poverty and toward prosperity by forging strong links between production and sales. 

Big Data + Agriculture 

In Guizhou, big data is being used in areas of agriculture including intelligent production monitoring and precision linking of production and marketing to create cloud-based data on products such as chilies, dragon fruit, and kiwi fruit, thereby creating optimal routes to market for Guizhou's produce. 

Big Data + Industry 

Big data is being used in industrial settings to take products out and bring skilled personnel in. Wang Zhenxing, who returned from Beijing to Guiyang, now works with big data for an online culture and tourism company. The app Cloud Travel Guizhou connects scenic spots and tourists via big data in optimizing scenic exploitation, management, and marketing and in providing tourists with a comprehensive smart service in the palm of their hands. Nature blessed Guizhou with beautiful and abundant scenery, while our ancestors left us with a colorful and alluring culture," Wang Zhenxing explains with a smile. He and his colleagues firmly believe that big data can help achieve great things for tourism in Guizhou. 

Guizhou ranked first in China for the growth of its digital economy for five consecutive years from 2015 to 2019, and it topped the country for job growth in digital economy in both 2017 and 2018. China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, Huawei, Tencent, Apple and other world-renowned tech companies as well as world-class data centers have sprung up in Guizhou, along with local companies including Huochebang and Baishan Cloud. In 2019, the total output value of digital economy accounted for 29.5% of gross product in the province, and the multiplier effect of data on promoting economic development and increasing productivity is increasingly apparent. 

Big Data + 'X' Factor = Prosperity 

This is another equation for understanding Guizhou's success with big data. 

"Although it's not easy, the money is good. The key though is that it's close to home!" Han Zhenping, 31, worked away from home for many years, but now he rides a bicycle to work every day. Being able to earn money close to home means he can take better care of his parents and two children. In May 2018, Han and his family moved from Leyao, a village deep in the mountains in Maoshi Township, Zunyi City to the poverty-alleviation relocation and resettlement community at Xuetangbao. 

Guizhou's big data platform for targeted poverty alleviation combines data on every registered poor household from 17 departments, including social security, medical care, transportation, and public security. It is linked to the Smart Employment Cloud, enabling the intelligent matching of the desired employment and conditions of poor households to job opportunities. 

After his family settled in their new home, Han Zhenping received product assembly training and started work at the Smart Service Center for Agricultural Product Production and Marketing in Zunyi. "My eldest kid is 8 years old and is studying at the elementary school in the community," Han explains with a big smile on his face. 

Guizhou has also integrated its Poverty Alleviation Cloud with its Education Cloud to accurately identify poor students and coordinate multi-department funding for them, from the start of compulsory education through university. 

Big Data + Poverty Alleviation 

Guizhou's achievements in poverty reduction are nothing short of a miracle. Since 2012, Guizhou has gone from being the Chinese province with the most poverty-stricken residents to the province with the most people removed from poverty. By 2019, a total of 8.92 million people had been removed from poverty, and the incidence of poverty had dropped from 26.8% in 2012 to 0.85%. 

Big Data + People's Wellbeing 

Big data supports the ever-changing cloud-based lives of the Guizhou people. 

"In April this year, our rice noodle workshop was upgraded. People from the (market supervision) department came to me and helped me apply using my cell phone. I got the (food production license) certificate the next day," explains Hu Rongping, the owner of a rice noodle processing workshop in Guiyang, as he brings up the cloud-based Guizhou Duocaibao government services application on his phone. 

Designed to "help people do less legwork by using data," Guizhou Duocaibao is a government services mobile platform in the province. Since the opening of the integrated online platform, the statutory time limit for provincial administrative examination and approval in the province has been reduced by more than 60% and the examination and approval time for setting up companies has been reduced from the original 23 working days to as little as one working day in some cases. 

Big data can provide technical support for modern governance and inject energy into people's daily lives. In the city, facial recognition technology is being used to improve smart living, while in the countryside, a ride-hailing app called "Tongcuncun" for travelling between villages points to a bright future of common digital empowerment. Big data applied to people's lives is truly helping to bring benefits to the public. 

"You can tell whether a policy formulated by the CPC Central Committee is good based on how rural residents react in their expressions. If it makes them smile, the policy is good." These were the words spoken by President Xi five years ago in Guizhou. Seeing the smiling faces of duck farmer Qu Hongxiang, primary school student Fu Shenglong, young entrepreneur Wang Zhenxing, returning father Han Zhenping, and rice noodle boss Hu Rongping, it is clear that developing big data in Guizhou makes sense. 

(Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 15, 2020)