In the face of the limit test brought by the severe epidemic to social governance, Zhejiang has taken the initiative to "establish an accurate and smart control mechanism for epidemic prevention and control and work and production resumption through one chart, one code and one index", which has attracted wide attention.

The core governance values of "one chart, one code and one index" can be summarized with three words: scientific, accurate and efficient. The five-color epidemic chart, the health code, the control and smoothness index provide effective channels for governments at different levels to classify prevention and control efforts and take accurate measures and make it convenient for the production of enterprises and life of people. These measures have provided a decision-making basis for correct identification of changes, scientific response to changes and seeking changes actively so that an accurate and scientific victory can be won in the battle against the epidemic and the battle of economic and social development.

Why is Zhejiang? If you take a look at its accumulation in the development of the digital economy over the years, you will surely find the answer. Behind such kind of  "smart control blueprint" is a vivid reflection of the success of Zhejiang in deeply implementing the "No. 1 Project" of the digital economy and leading the digital transformation of economy and society with digital technology innovation. It also reflects the solid confidence of Zhejiang’s digital government to turn its institutional advantage into regional governance efficiency as well as a resonance effect between its innovation and entrepreneurship and its internet gene.

Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Zhejiang has unleashed its advantage in digital technology innovation to effectively enhance the effect of epidemic prevention and control. Zhejiang is the only province to build a national demonstration zone of the information economy and pass the evaluation and one of the first batches of provinces to build a national demonstration zone of digital economy innovation and development.

Focused on cutting-edge technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence, Zhejiang Lab has launched and implemented major technology projects of digital economy, accelerated the research of key and core technologies, stepped up the cultivation and support efforts for digital technology innovation enterprises. By unleashing the principal role of enterprises in digital technology research and innovation and striving to develop new digital products and services leading the market demands, the digital economy has become a new engine for Zhejiang to promote the reform of quality, efficiency, and dynamic force and realize a high quality of development.

Thanks to its foundation and strength, digital technology innovation has become an important support to promote the overall and comprehensive prevention and control capacity of the society as Zhejiang speeds up the construction of an epidemic warning system and an emergency response mechanism based on big data and artificial intelligence.

Hangzhou has taken the initiative to release the health code to achieve accurate control of the people. Based on real data, it helps "control target population and let go of the healthy population" and has been promoted provincewide soon. It has realized "declaration for one time, dynamic management, mutual recognition among regions and common acceptance provincewide", laying a foundation for Zhejiang to return to normal.

Thanks to the foundation and strength of digital technology innovation, Alibaba Cloud has opened all its artificial intelligence computing capacity to public research organizations around the world from the start of the battle against the epidemic to speed up the research and development of new drugs and vaccines. With the artificial intelligence algorithm of Alibaba DAMO Academy, Zhejiang Provincial Disease Control Center has shortened the gene analysis of suspected cases from several hours to half an hour, which has significantly enhanced the detection efficiency. The online consultation and inquiry services offered by platforms such as Alibaba Health are safe and convenient, thus widely popular among the people.

Since the start of the battle against the epidemic, "internet plus" and life health, two scientific highlands built by Zhejiang in priority, have played a great role in different aspects such as development of health code, research, and development of new drugs, vaccines, gene analysis of suspected cases, online consulting and inquiry services. As the epidemic prevention and control of Zhejiang are entering a new stage of improvement instability, the two scientific highlands appear more important.

As an open and smart operation platform supporting the digital transformation of economy, society, and government, the "City Brain" has become a "command center" for the information battle against the epidemic.

The "City Brain" initiated by Hangzhou has realized full coverage of each field gradually. In the epidemic, the "City Brain" of Hangzhou has established a public health monitoring and novel coronavirus prevention and control system at the first moment.

Behind the "one chart, one code and one index" of Zhejiang are varied measures taken to smoothen logistics with "Artery Connection", flows of people with "Health Code" and flows of business by covering the "last 100 meters" for e-commerce delivery. It supports productive service enterprises of sectors such as internet traffic, logistics and express to resume work and operation in priority and supports the efficient collaboration between industrial e-commerce enterprises and logistics enterprises. Zhejiang has perfected its smart logistics system by applying technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain and cleared the circulation blockades for production and living supplies to guarantee the effective supply of production materials and living supplies.

Big data is applied to analyze and judge the economic development trend and difficulties of each industry and sector, providing a scientific basis for the accurate implementation of measures for epidemic prevention and control and work resumption.

In the development ecology of digital economy of Zhejiang, market entities serve as fresh troops, and governmental supplies have been optimized from such aspects as policy, system, service, platform, and carrier, thus providing a sound environment for development.

In the construction of a Zhejiang with credit, rule of law and safety, related policies, regulations, and rules are formulated concerning issues such as electronic business, internet finance, and credit information management. By releasing administrative regulations on the opening and sharing of governmental and public information resources, Zhejiang Provincial government has created an institutional environment of "protecting intellectual property rights and supporting innovation".

Driven by the government, the strong innovation and entrepreneurship desire and the quick and flexible response to market signals and pressure of Zhejiang digital enterprises have been fully unleashed.

Empowered with digital technology in the battle against the epidemic, the advantages of Zhejiang digital economy enterprises in such areas as emergency management, public security, and intelligent traffic enable the governments of different places to accurately and effectively achieve joint prevention and control and implement measures.

Other than policy support, governmental departments also offer various supporting services through channels such as digital platforms. The supply-demand connection platform for the work resumption of Zhejiang enterprises has been officially opened, which offers services and functions such as business benefiting policies, announcements, and guidelines, supply-demand connection. The platform helps enterprises quickly issue and match supply-demand information and realize online release and offline connection, solving the supply-demand information asymmetry for the production resumption of the enterprises. The platform has also established strategic cooperation with China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom and companies such as Huawei and Ali Dingding, providing the enterprises provincewide with free services such as cloud-based office, publicity assistant, cloud-based conferencing and communication support and helping the enterprises fight the epidemic smartly with remote collaboration.

Currently, new industries, businesses and models of the digital economy represented by internet+ healthcare and visual e-commerce are developing at a faster pace, while the service sector shows an increasingly clear trend of intelligence, online and cleanness.

As a result, different demands for labor have gradually brought forth new productive relations and new allocation modes of production materials. During the epidemic, it has become a new pattern of sharing economy to realize a distributed collaboration of “manpower” through flexible dispatching of staff and instant personnel training. What is shared is no more idle resources, but human resources or professional abilities.

After the epidemic turns stable and becomes better, Zhejiang’s digital economy will usher in new development opportunities, which will bring a new dynamic force to the stable development of enterprises and the economy.

(Chen Chouyong is head of the Institute of Information Development of Zhejiang Province)

Executive Editor: Ye Ke

Translation: Ye Ke, Chen Wenjing