Changes at the Big Data Expo
On May 26, the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2019 (Big Data Expo 2019) took place in Guiyang as scheduled. As a highlight of the Big Data Expo 2019, exhibitions again became a field to showcase new technologies, a stage for major enterprises to compete and a stand for the public to know big data. In professional, insightful and enchanting forms, the exhibitions showed the current situation of the global digital economy, and made the Big Data Expo 2019 an important indicator of the development of global big data industry.
After five years of development, Big Data Expo has become one of the most influential exhibitions in China's digital economy field. It registered 119,000 participants in 2018 and achieved a record number of participants this year.
With a scale of some 60,000 square meters, the exhibitions this year were divided into three sectors: advanced international technology, industrial digital application and innovation & entrepreneurship achievements, with two pavilions for each sector. Special exhibition areas were set up for 5G, AI, poverty alleviation through big data, industrial internet and national exhibition groups. 448 enterprises, including big names like Huawei, ZTE, Alibaba, Tencent, Unis, Qihoo 360 and Inspur, participated in the exhibitions. 156 exhibitors were from 25 foreign countries, including the U.S., the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Israel and India, accounting for 34.82 percent of all exhibitors. According to statistics, 279 enterprises made their debuts, including Sony, Ubtech, Beike, Xiaohongshu and Kuaishou, fully showing the prosperity of the big data industry. All exhibitors and relevant institutions played their "trump cards", to show the latest technologies and applications in the field of big data research and practice.
What differentiates the exhibitions this year from those in the previous years is that we can keenly feel that government institutions at all levels are attaching greater importance to big data development and application, and vying for opportunities from big data development.
The booth of Hebei Province displayed the effects of big data development in recent two years in the hope of attracting enterprises to Hebei to develop the big data industry. In recent two years, Hebei has sped up the construction of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone, and the construction of five demonstration zones including Zhangjiakou New Energy Big Data Demonstration Zone, Langfang Logistics Finance Remote Sensing Big Data Demonstration Zone and Chengde Tourism Big Data Demonstration Zone has promoted the rapid development of the big data industry. To date 1 million servers in these zones have gone into operation.
In Guizhou where the big data industry is thriving, different areas in Guizhou are exploring "big data + social governance". Guiyang's "Society and Cloud" platform integrates social organizations, caring enterprises, professional social workers, volunteers and other subjects, finds social pain spots, advances charity crowd funding, facilitates targeted matching, builds a "city brain" for comprehensive social governance, and enables people to handle 185 government service items by mobile phone.
Based on realistic needs, more and more exhibitors highlighted the subjects of cloud computing and AI, and launched big data application solutions in respective industries. In essence, through the building of a digital governance system, they hope to exert their advantages and keep growing during advancing the modernization of national governance.
"As a new general technology, AI is pushing for unprecedented changes to all industries," said Zheng Yerong, Vice President of Huawei, adding, "Huawei Cloud will offer enterprises stable, reliable, secure and sustainable intelligent cloud services." But he admitted that AI is currently troubled by problems such as costly computing, long supply period and the shortage of talents.
The big data industry is in the ascendant and Big Data Expo is presenting one possibility after another.
