More than 20 diplomats from 19 nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) visit the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone Exchange and Experience Center in Guiyang on June 4, 2023. Photo: Liu Caiyu/GT

 

More than 20 diplomats from 19 nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) visit the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone Exchange and Experience Center in Guiyang on June 4, 2023. Photo: Liu Caiyu/GT

 

Guizhou is a good example to learn from in digital economy development, said diplomats who are now visiting the southwestern province in China to study the region's development achievements in ecological civilization and scientific and technological innovation.

"The center is extremely impressive. We've always heard of Guizhou as being the pioneer of big data in China," Reda Oudghiri Idrissi, Minister Counsellor from Embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco in Beijing, told the Global Times after visiting the National Big Data Comprehensive Pilot Zone Exchange and Experience Center in Guiyang.

Guided by the docents, more than 20 diplomats from 19 nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) visited the center on Sunday, trying to learn more about how Guizhou big data leads industrial upgrading and economic transformation, and closely experiences the changes brought by big data for Guizhou.

Juan Jose Buitrago, Consul General of Spanish Embassy in Beijing, told the Global Times that the data are the engine of future growth. Data centers will become the oil of the future and he expects more people from Guizhou Province would come to Spain, and vice versa.

After the visit, Idrissi praised the simulation systems that connect trucks, shippers and exporters within the province on a single big screen, saying it allows the public to see on real time basis how specific sectors of the economy are improving and it would play a useful role in facilitating provincial exchanges and economic exchanges if Morocco could apply it. 

Since now the pandemic is over, Idrissi said he looks forward to resuming bilateral exchanges and visits with Chinese side and learn from China's experience in digitalization, especially Guizhou's and introduce the Digital Development Agency from Morocco to the province, to the Guiyang big data centers.

"China has moved and modernized by leaps and bounds, beyond words. We do look at you as an example."

Morocco has long made the strategic choice of openness and modernization and set the introduction of digital technologies and digitalization in various sectors as a national priority. In fields like technology, digitalization of smart e-government, digital transformation, people-centered development strategy, Morocco has been moving fast, Idrissi said.

Digital technologies are having a profound impact on economic and social development, and Guizhou province, a mountainous region in Southwest China, is one place that has been transformed by big data. 

After more than 10 years of development, Guizhou has become one of the regions with the largest number of ultra-large data centers in the world, and the growth rate of digital economy has ranked first in China for several years in a row.

The province's growth rate of digital economy has ranked first in China for seven consecutive years, with its added value accounting for about 37 percent of GDP, according to Guizhou Daily.