(Economic Observation) To formulate international standards for digital technology, China's industry-university-research institutes are "grouping groups to go overseas"
China News Agency, Beijing, May 6 (Reporter Xia Bin) In the fields of blockchain, privacy protection and data security, new progress has been made in international standards led and participated by China.
In fact, in the formulation of international standards for digital technology, China's industry-university-research institutes have shown a clear trend of "going overseas" in recent years, and Chinese technology companies are playing a more active role.
It is reported that on April 25, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) released the first blockchain international standard for supply chain finance, led by Ant Group, and the participants include China Electronics Standardization Institute, Tongji University, JD.com, Tencent and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, etc.; On April 12, China's two standard proposals of confidential computing and secure multi-party computing-obfuscation circuit were successfully pre-established in the International Standards Organization (ISO).
In the digital age, participation in the formulation of international standards, especially technical standards, is related to a country's technological discourse power and international influence, and is also an important manifestation of a country's comprehensive competitiveness.
In the formulation of international standards, China was once in the "follow-up" stage, but in the past ten years, this situation has quietly changed.
According to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) data, before 2000, the number of international standards formulated by China was only 13; from 2001 to 2015, with the rapid development of China's economy and society, the number of international standards formulated by China reached 182; from 2015 By 2020, with the further improvement of economic and technological strength, the number of international standards hosted by China will exceed 800.
Hui Zhibin, director of the Internet Research Center of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that from cloud computing, the Internet of Things to artificial intelligence, 5G, and edge computing, a large number of new technologies and concepts have emerged, and cutting-edge technologies have experienced explosive growth.
At the same time, China's participation in technical standards has achieved rapid development, and even changed from "following" to "leading".
With the in-depth development of the digital economy and application technology, more and more Chinese technology companies can be seen in the fields of artificial intelligence, blockchain, privacy protection, and data security.
Companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, Ant, and Baidu have successively built standardization teams since 2015.
At present, Ant Group has led and participated in the formulation of nearly 40 international standards, covering blockchain, privacy computing, mobile payment, security technology and other fields; Tencent has led and participated in cultural entertainment, zero trust, games, blockchain and other fields. International standards; Baidu has also taken the lead in the formulation of a number of global standards for artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and blockchain.
It is worth noting that in the past few years, in the formulation of international standards for digital technology, the trend of Chinese industry-university-research "groups to go overseas" has become more obvious.
For example, in February this year, the first international standard for blockchain digital collections was established in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which was jointly proposed by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Tencent, Ant Group, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Zhijiang Laboratory and other institutions.
Wang Yuntao, deputy chief engineer of the Institute of Cloud Computing and Big Data, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, told reporters that an application that can be standardized and industrialized must require the cooperation of all relevant parties.
"Industrial consensus is the core of the standard, academic research is the foundation of the standard, and research institutions are the driving force of the standard. In the process of standard formulation, the trend of Chinese industry-university-research groups going overseas has become more and more obvious."
There is also a point of view that although in the digital economy era, China has participated more deeply in the formulation of international standards and has achieved some successful practices, but it is still far away from countries such as Europe and the United States.
Data show that as of 2020, the number of international standards hosted and dominated by the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Japan accounts for 90% to 95% of the global standards, while China accounts for 1.8%.
In this regard, Wang Yuntao said that China still needs continuous investment in participating in the formulation of international standards. The first is continuous investment in technology, capital, and human resources.
He said that it usually takes 2 to 4 years for an international standard to be released from project initiation, which requires multiple rounds of debate, communication, drafting and other promotion and research work.
"Because of this, behind each technical standard, long-term technical investment, financial support, and fixed professional talent allocation are required." (End)