Big Data Cities in China, Guiyang and Guian New Area(1/2)

This article is written by Mr. Izumi Harada, Executive Fellow, Institute for International Socio-Economic Studies（NEC Group）

High-tech Supremacy
The recent trade war between USA and China was fundamentally caused by the battle for high-tech supremacy.

Areas where leading Chinese high-tech industries are concentrated are Zhongguancun in Beijing, Shenzhen in Guangdong province and Guiyang and Guian New Area in Guizhou province. Guizhou province is located south-west of China and on the high land, about 1000 meters above sea level. Due to such location the average annual temperature is 16℃、and the area abounds in natural resources as coals and water which contributes to the hydroelectric power generation. About one third of the population 36 million is coming from 17 ethnic minorities.

In the old days the province was among the poorest and has been economically less developed in China. In order to improve the situation the Chinese Government established in 1992 National High-Tech Industry Development District in the province capital city of Guiyang. Unfortunately at that time there was no foundation nor ground for the development of industries, so, no remarkable improvement was observed

Big Change
In 2013 Mr. Chen Gang who served as standing committee member of Beijing was appointed as the mayor of Guiyang, and started to appeal that Guiyang would be best suited for the center of Big Data (large amount of data) in China thanks to the lowest electric prices, stable weather, and less occurrence of earthquakes there. Since then Guiyang started to achieve big improvement and change.

In 2018 the revenue related to big data industry accounted for about 37% of the total revenue of the regional total industries. The government of Guiyang won 18 model projects of national level such as National Laboratory of big data projects, National big data industry incubation and National big data model base.

Out of 146 national High Tech districts Guiyang was ranked at bottom in the late 1990 but was uplifted and ranked top 41 then.

They have organized annual event of International Big Data Industrial Exhibition since 2014 in Guiyang.

In parallel with these promotions the Chinese Government positioned the year 2014 as the first year of Big Data, and, President Xi Jinping visited the Guizhou province and demanded to maintain the two line of policies namely economic growth and maintenance of ecological environment. The president Xi Jinping established newly large Guian New Area between the city of Guiyang and the city of Anshun

Guian New Area was the eighth High-Tech national new district and was positioned to undertake the 3 strategic important roles as to promote economic growth in the west part of China, to be as new center for inland economic development and to be a center for eco-civilization model.

Guian New Area was also developed in parallel with the city of Guiyang with full support from the state and the province to prepare and provide the transportation infrastructure as airport and highway and high-speed communication network.

Most suitable region
As result of these efforts and promotions not only BATH (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei) but also internationally acknowledged large ICT companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Foxconn started to deploy their offices and facilities in the area.

On top of this evolution such industries as medical, AI and transportation and mobility to utilize big data are also concentrating in the area.