Photo taken on May 25, 2017 shows a demonstration center of Guizhou big data pilot zone in Guiyang, southwest China's Guizhou Province. Photo: Xinhua

 The US digital economy continues to rank first in the world, reaching $13.6 trillion in 2020, China ranks second with a scale of $5.4 trillion, according to an industry white paper released by China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) on Monday.

Germany, Japan, and the US ranked third to fifth, with a scale of $2.54, $2.48, and 1.79 trillion, respectively, the white paper showed.

China meanwhile has the fastest development speed in digital economy, with a growth rate of 9.6 percent year-on-year.

In terms of proportions, the digital economy of developed nations Germany, the UK, and the US occupy a dominant position in the domestic  economies, accounting for more than 60 percent of GDP.

China’s digital economy has become a stabilizer amid the shadow of the epidemic and downward pressure in the global economy, and is also a key driver of economic growth. From online shopping to online classes and entertainment, China's innovation in the digital world – an ever-growing and economy-wide infrastructure – was maximized to generate new growth through new business models amid the pandemic.

China’s digital economy made up nearly 40 percent of the country’s GDP in 2020, up 2.4 percentage points above 2019 levels, according to CAICT.

Another sign of China’s booming digital economy is that while taking a hit from COVID-19, Chinese internet companies saw a growth in revenue during the pandemic. From January to July, revenue at major Chinese internet companies increased by 14.9 percent to 691.6 billion yuan, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said previously.

Global Times