From self driving to kiwi fruit plantation: Go into Guiyang to see how big data changes their life

Like "Silicon Valley" in the U.S., there is "Data Valley" in China. The valley is located in Guiyang, China's first national forest city with an average annual temperature of 15.3 degrees Celsius. Guiyang is also known as a summer resort city.

"Data Valley" is a national leading big data technology innovation and application service demonstration base, as well as a national big data industry agglomeration area. Through overall planning, Guiyang has established 10 big data industry agglomeration zones in fields such as data storage, data cleaning and processing, data analysis and application, data security, digital logistics, innovation & entrepreneurship incubator and big data talent training, thus preliminarily building an integral big data industry chain.

According to Li Xiang, Deputy Director General of the Guiyang Big Data Development Administration, since the establishment of "China Data Valley" in Guiyang in 2015, Guiyang has hosted the "China International Big Data Industry Expo" for five consecutive years and advanced the deep integration of big data with the real economy. Big data has become a key to the restructuring, transformation and upgrading of Guiyang's economy.

Data show that Guiyang's big data enterprises achieved primary business revenues of 100 billion yuan in 2018, up 22.4 percent from 2017. 51 big data enterprises above designated size were newly established in 2018 to increase the total number of such enterprises in Guiyang to 208. Guiyang's total telecommunication business volume was 45.721 billion yuan, up 137.8 percent from 2017.

Founded in 2017, PIX Moving is a startup in the self-driving field. Apart from the Guiyang headquarters, the high-tech company founded just two years ago has established two subsidiaries in Xi'an and Silicon Valley, enjoying some popularity in the world.

"Now talent competition in the self-driving industry is intense. There is a good communications university in Xi'an, and Silicon Valley with a great concentration of capital is a global innovation center," said Yu Chuan, hoping that the two subsidiaries would recruit more engineers and find outstanding capital. In addition to the investment from two domestic companies, PIX Moving attracted the investment from Silicon Valley because of foreign media reports in its early days.

As a governmental demonstration point for big data application in agriculture, Huang Lianghua, the owner of "Xiuwen Hualan Kiwi Fruit Plantation & Tourist Park" in Xiuwen County, Guiyang, introduced how he increased income with big data to people.com.cn.

After learning that his hometown was developing the kiwi fruit industry in 2009, Huang Lianghua who had worked in Zhejiang for 18 years returned to start a business. He started to grow kiwi fruits with the money he had earned, but got a poor harvest and made low income at first for lack of cultivation technique and management experience.

Later the government regularly invited experts to teach farmers growing techniques and management methods hand by hand. In 2015, the government introduced big data technology to plantations.

Henceforth dramatic changes took place, said Huang. "The labor cost was reduced, management became easier, the yield increased and the income doubled. If weather conditions are good, I can earn more than 600,000 yuan a year."

"I used to need more than 10 persons to manage the plantation and to patrol at night. Now I need one or two only, as every corner of the plantation can be seen clearly on the mobile phone. And the system can send the information of areas lacking fertilizer and water or with pests and diseases by mobile phone in real time. Just a click on the computer, I can water and fertilize kiwi fruit trees. Without big data, I could not control some details of the plantation and it was too late when I found problems. Due to the timely handling of problems, the yield and quality of kiwi fruits have increased significantly, so has the income."

Apart from the two above-mentioned fields, Touchworks Optoelectronics, the only domestic high-tech enterprise manufacturing 1in-100in full-size touch display devices (touch screens and displays) in Guiyang, is also committed to advancing Industry 4.0 through integrating big data with industrial equipment. Qingyan Ancient Town, a national 5A scenic spot in the southern suburbs of Guiyang, is also pressing ahead with smart tourism construction, and has so far completed the construction of four "smart tourism" systems (wireless coverage and video surveillance system, transmission network system, e-ticking system and intelligent parking system).

In Guiyang, from self-driving and smart city at the forefront of technology, to the people's basic living necessities (food, clothing, housing, transportation, entertainment and travel), we can feel the changes to the people's life brought by big data.