Ministry: Data to hog limelight at digital summit

More efforts will be made to cultivate the data market and encourage enterprises of all types of ownership to participate in the construction of data trading platforms, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday.

Wang Jianwei, deputy head of the information technology development department at the ministry, said steps will also be taken to guide telecommunication, finance, electric power and other industries to open data, and improve the volume and quality of data supply.

Wang made the comments at a news conference for the fifth Digital China Summit, which is scheduled to be held in Fuzhou, Fujian province, from July 23 to 24.

The summit will focus on the construction of digital China. It will be held both online and offline and consist of sections, including a main forum, an exhibition, sub-forums and an innovation contest.

Cao Shumin, deputy head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said China has made strides in building digital China in the last five years, and achieved breakthroughs in technologies like 5G and Beidou Navigation Satellite System.

As of the end of May, China had 1.7 million 5G base stations and 428 million 5G mobile subscribers, Cao said.