Accelerate the deployment of "new infrastructure" and inject new momentum into the development of the new economy
On March 4, the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China convened a meeting to emphasize the need to increase investment in public health services and emergency material security, and accelerate the construction of new infrastructure such as 5G networks and data centers. "New infrastructure" is gradually emerging as a "catalyst" for development, and will play an important role in stabilizing growth, restructuring, and benefiting the people's livelihood.
Long-term value at multiple levels
Although the definition of "new infrastructure" is still inconsistent, generally accepted statements come from the CCTV international channel: "new infrastructure" refers to the infrastructure construction that focuses on the technology side, mainly including 5G infrastructure, UHV , Intercity high-speed railways and intercity rail transit, new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet and other seven fields, involving communications, power, transportation, digital and other key social and livelihood industries.
The "new infrastructure" will build a basic network that supports the new momentum of China's economy, bringing huge acceleration to China's new economy, and will also drive the formation of short-term and long-term economic growth points. The reasons are as follows.
First, the "new infrastructure" is currently in its infancy and has huge investment space. In the field of 5G, the country is initiating the construction of a comprehensive independent networking 5G basic network. The three major operators plan to build 600,000 base stations by 2020. In the data center field, because of the widespread application of big data and artificial intelligence, computing power requirements have increased significantly. Leading Internet companies are rushing to build ultra-large-scale data centers. Wuhan, Chongqing, Nanjing and other cities have set off a new round of computing power competition. In the field of industrial Internet, many large industrial companies, such as Haier, TCL, Sany Heavy Industry, Xugong Group and other companies are accelerating the construction of the industrial Internet platform of the industry, and deploying edge computing networks that are interconnected with mechanical equipment. In the field of artificial intelligence, Baidu, Deaf, Yitu and other companies are building artificial intelligence open platforms. Face recognition, medical reading and other fields support ecological development.
Secondly, "new infrastructure" will spawn a large number of new formats. Just as the popularity of the Internet has brought the era of e-commerce led by Taobao and Jingdong; the popularity of the mobile Internet has brought about the era of social and sharing economy led by WeChat and Didi; the popularity of 4G networks has brought the era of wireless broadband applications . As "new infrastructure" becomes a reality, the "network effect" of "new infrastructure" will bring exponential growth, and bring a large number of new businesses with high growth that are currently unpredictable.
Finally, "new infrastructure" will accelerate the arrival of the "full online" era of China's economy. As "new infrastructure" becomes a reality, not only will the native digital industry be more vigorously developed, many traditional service industries and manufacturing industries will also become online industries, China's industrial digitalization level and Internet technology level will also be further improved. What follows is more transparent information transmission, fewer intermediate links, and a more efficient way of organizing resources for the overall economic operation. "New infrastructure" may be the key to support the new momentum of China's economic development.
Has a series of new features such as "multiplier effect"
Aiming at the development of "new infrastructure", in addition to recognizing its long-term value, we must also deeply understand a series of characteristics of "new infrastructure".
First, the "new infrastructure" has a greater "multiplier effect". Compared with traditional infrastructure projects, in addition to exerting investment-driven effects, “new infrastructure” has a greater “multiplier effect”. Smaller "new infrastructure" investments will activate a large number of innovative formats and create greater employment opportunities. For example, 5G is generally considered to activate new industries such as 8K high-definition and intelligent connected cars. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology believes that by 2030, 5G is expected to drive China's direct economic output of 6.3 trillion yuan.
"New infrastructure" is the infrastructure of the new economy and new business formats. The ubiquitous, high-performance, low-cost new infrastructure will greatly reduce the threshold and technical difficulty of new technologies and new models for innovation and entrepreneurship, and can be implemented in a short period of time. Stimulate a lot of innovation and employment opportunities.
The second is that "new infrastructure" also includes a very important "soft platform". "Soft platforms" such as e-commerce platforms, mobile payments, and express logistics have become the infrastructure for the digital transformation of the new economy and traditional industries. During the epidemic, these "soft platforms" underlined the fundamental supporting role of economic development and city operations. WeChat mini-programs and Alipay mini-programs have become the basic means to support the normal operation of many supermarkets and retail. Alipay also announced on March 10 that it will create a "new infrastructure" for the digitalization of the service industry, and officially upgraded from a financial payment platform to an open platform for digital life.
New business formats based on Internet infrastructure such as e-commerce, payment, live broadcast, and logistics have become "soft platforms" that accompany "hard facilities", supporting the development of the new economy and becoming indispensable for "new infrastructure" portion. Therefore, the connotation of "new infrastructure" should be understood from a broader perspective. In addition to "hard facilities" such as 5G and data centers, new "soft platforms", including high-precision maps, intelligent cloud services, and urban data platforms, should be used. Seen as a key "new infrastructure".
Third, the "new infrastructure" requires in-depth participation of cutting-edge technology companies. The "new infrastructure" originated from the technology side. The construction of the "new infrastructure" requires a relatively high level of scientific and technological capabilities. At the same time, with the high-intensity R & D and innovation process, cutting-edge technology companies will become key players in the "new infrastructure". For example, in the field of data centers, as the requirements for data centers continue to increase, the traditional standardized data center model to be built has been unable to meet the high-end needs of Internet leaders such as BAT. In recent years, Internet leaders have turned to self-built models to build high-performance data. Center, integrating its own technology and scene experience. In recent years, Baidu has built more than 250,000 data centers in Yangquan, Shanxi, Alibaba Cloud has built more than 300,000 data centers in Guangdong River, and Tencent has built more than 300,000 data centers in Yizheng, Yangzhou.
Frontier technology companies will become key builders of "new infrastructure". On the one hand, frontier technology companies have mastered key technologies, products and platforms for building "new infrastructure" facilities. On the other hand, frontier technology companies are also major players in "new infrastructure". Users, who are more aware of the requirements of new infrastructure, can more closely combine the application scenarios and requirements of "new infrastructure" and improve the capabilities of new infrastructure through iterative methods.
Fourth, the "new infrastructure" has more room for innovation in business models. "New infrastructure" is accompanied by new economic enterprises. New economic enterprises are good at business model innovation. The operation of new infrastructure also has the "gene" of business model innovation. For example, in the field of new energy charging piles, the energy chain group uses the Internet model to operate charging piles. On the one hand, it has linked more than 310,000 charging piles, accounting for 70% of the total domestic charging piles; on the other hand, it has access to more than 750 homes. The platform APP provides a one-stop cloud charging service for new energy vehicle owners.
In addition to gaining operating income, the “new infrastructure” can significantly increase the investment income of new infrastructure by combining with the new economic development model. For example, by using infrastructure services as equity investment in cultivating start-ups, entrusting companies with platform incubation capabilities to operate, and using infrastructure as the core asset of industrial parks to jointly build industrial parks with professional institutions, etc., through these models, new infrastructure You can get a greater return on your investment.
Accelerating industrial development through its own advantages
Under the guidance of high-quality economic development, the "new infrastructure" represented by data centers, industrial Internet, etc., has become an important growth point of the new economy. To better highlight the advantages of "new infrastructure" in the future, we recommend the following.
The first is to give play to the attractiveness of the "new infrastructure" to the industry and build an industrial park relying on key infrastructure. Plan a "new infrastructure" project based on the needs of the pain points of industrial development, and build a new economic industrial park around the core resources of infrastructure, such as high-performance data centers, 5G core nodes, industrial Internet industry platforms, and artificial intelligence industry training data sets. The industrial support value and attractiveness of the facility; co-development of new infrastructure and industrial parks with large-scale technology companies, joint development with government-enterprise joint ventures, government purchase services, Internet model operations, and infrastructure service participation .
The second is to use scenes to enhance the innovation value of information infrastructure. The scenario is an efficient application center and innovation center for the new economy, providing an important engine for the explosive growth of enterprises and a coagulant for the formation of an emerging industry ecology. It is recommended to use scenario thinking to plan "new infrastructure" projects, transform the infrastructure into a scene platform that supports enterprises' new product research and development, display capabilities, and obtain market launch, to attract and cultivate new economic enterprises through high-quality scene supply. It should rely on infrastructure to provide testing grounds and provide basic and verification environments for new technologies and products. According to the innovation needs of enterprises, tap the needs of urban management and industrial upgrades, and design innovative scenarios based on infrastructure, and build together with technology companies. New scenarios; based on 5G, industrial Internet and other infrastructure, systematically package new technologies and new products of local enterprises, integrate and package, and launch "urban solutions" with urban characteristics to promote enterprises as a whole. Through a series of "scene combination punches", attract and cultivate new economic enterprises, and give full play to the innovative value of new infrastructure.
The third is to enhance the ability to cultivate new businesses through the "platform + ecology" model. Platform enterprises play an important role in the development of the new economy. The platform's powerful empowerment and organizational capabilities can maximize the value of infrastructure to support the new economy. Platform resources should be cultivated or introduced in an all-round way, and a new economy should be cultivated based on "new infrastructure". Introduce platform-based enterprise incubation platforms to incubate enterprises using "new infrastructure" facilities through joint innovation with local enterprises; platform-based businesses newly introduced by introductory enterprises need to be rapidly enlarged and strengthened; promote the transformation of local enterprise advantages into a platform , Transform traditional manufacturing or service companies into empowerment platforms, release the advantages of local traditional industries to empower more technology companies, and form a "platform + ecological" development model.
The fourth is the keen grasp of the new circuit created by the "new infrastructure". "New Infrastructure" will spawn many explosive new tracks, such as short videos, live e-commerce, and new cultural and creative brands, which should be actively tracked and quickly deployed. Focus on nurturing high-growth potential enterprises with the ability to "create a change in the world scene", and help companies accelerate technological and model innovation through joint innovation and external resource docking; track Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other technological innovation centers Innovative developments of new economic enterprises, timely discover new formats and startups with explosive potential; pay attention to the new formats that young people like, and focus on supporting local industrial characteristics.
(The author Huang Bo is the deputy director of Beijing Great Wall Enterprise Strategy Research Institute)