What exactly does digital economy look like? What opportunities and challenges will it encounter during its development? Taking Wuzhen as the center, we tried to touch the pulse of the digital economy from the forum and the sharing of the guests.

The future is here

On the afternoon of the 20th, Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, concluded at the Entrepreneur Summit: The digital economy is ushering in the fourth innovation dividend period driven by artificial intelligence, which is the era of intelligent economy.

At present, the consensus is that the integration of technology and industry is still in the “initial period”, and all walks of life have a promising future. The development logic behind the digital economy is changing quietly. With the advent of the era of personalized consumption, it is no longer easy to seek growth opportunities from the mass level. The innovation of new consumption will originate and erupt from the subdivision.

The stage of development in which the digital economy itself is undergoing is also changing. In 2018, the industrial scale of China’s digital economy was 31 trillion yuan, accounting for 34% of GDP. Some institutions predict that in 10 years, the proportion of the digital economy will exceed 50%.

Convergence game

Different from the traditional competition mode, under which one company’s loss is another’s gain, the competition and cooperation in the digital economy era are no longer completely antonyms, but they participate in a convergence game in a wider space.

This feature is first reflected in the deep integration of technology and application. “In order to achieve the goal of digital economic development, we must cooperate with other technology companies.” Tang Wenbin said that at present, the entire technology circle is strengthening cooperation and exchanges to explore ways of common progress.

“We believe that future technology companies such as AI technology companies will become the new mainstream, which will integrate with all walks of life.” Ding Lei said that companies who now dare to invest in the “hard core” fields of education, medical care, manufacturing and agriculture, will have better opportunities.

Open and inclusive

At present, the world is in the development of strategic opportunities. On one hand, we have seen the infinite possibilities of world interconnection, but at the same time we must also be alert to the current phenomenon of de-communication in the world, and formulate strategies at the international level to create a good environment for the interconnection of global humans and enterprises.

“Now more than 20% of the world's people do not have mobile payments. An urgent task of 5G technology is to ensure that more rural areas enjoy Internet services through the integration of international spectrum,” said Malcolm Johnson.

“Inclusive” perhaps is the most pristine and warmest pulse of the digital economy. Wu Qiufeng, former CTO of the World Bank, professor of the University of Cambridge evaluated inclusive finance in this way: in the process of practicing inclusive finance, financial institutions should not only focus on the whereabouts of money, but on what value these funds create.

Executive Editor: Bei Xu

Translation:Bei Xu, Wenjin Chen