Beijing is accelerating its bid for global leadership in key technologies, planning to pump more than US$1 trillion into the economy through the introduction of everything from wireless networks to artificial intelligence (AI).
In a master plan backed by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Beijing plans to invest about US$1.4 trillion over six years to 2025, calling on urban governments and private tech giants such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) to lay 5G wireless networks, install cameras and sensors, and develop AI software that would underpin autonomous driving to automated factories and mass surveillance.
The new infrastructure initiative is expected to mainly bolster local giants — from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Huawei to SenseTime Group Ltd (商湯科技) — at the expense of US companies.
As tech nationalism mounts, the investment drive would reduce China’s dependence on foreign technology, echoing objectives set forth previously in the “Made in China 2025” program.
Such initiatives have already drawn fierce criticism from US President Donald Trump’s administration, resulting in moves to block the rise of Chinese tech companies such as Huawei.
“Nothing like this has happened before. This is China’s gambit to win the global tech race,” said Digital China Holdings Ltd (神州數碼) CEO Maria Kwok, as she sat in a Hong Kong office surrounded by facial recognition cameras and sensors. “Starting this year, we are really beginning to see the money flow through.”
The tech investment push is part of a fiscal package waiting to be signed off by China’s National People’s Congress, which convenes today. The government is expected to announce infrastructure funding of as much as US$563 billion this year, against the backdrop of the country’s worst economic performance since the Mao Zedong (毛澤東) era.
The nation’s biggest purveyors of cloud computing and data analysis, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), would be linchpins of the upcoming endeavor. China has already entrusted Huawei to galvanize 5G.
Tech leaders, including Pony Ma (馬化騰) and Jack Ma (馬雲), are espousing the program.
Digital China is a government-backed systems integration provider, among many that are jumping at the chance. It is bringing half a million units of project housing in Guangzhou online, including a complex three-quarters the size of New York City’s Central Park.
To find a home in Guangzhou, a user just has to log on to an app, scan their face and verify their identity. Leases can be signed digitally via smartphone and the renting authority is automatically flagged if a tenant’s payment is late.
China is no stranger to far-reaching plans with massive price tags that appear to achieve little and there is no guarantee that this program will deliver the economic rejuvenation that its proponents promise. Unlike previous efforts to resuscitate the economy with “dumb” bridges and highways, this newly laid digital infrastructure would help national champions develop cutting-edge technologies.
Bloomberg NEF China Research head Nannan Kou said that China’s new stimulus plan is likely to lead to a consolidation of industrial Internet providers, and could lead to the emergence of some larger companies capable of competing with global leaders such as GE and Siemens.
One bet is on industrial Internet of Things platforms, as China aims to cultivate three world-leading companies in this area by 2025, Kou added.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
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Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement. News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
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