To enhance new quality productive forces, it’s essential to break away from traditional industrial mindsets and build an innovation-friendly industrial ecosystem, experts said at a recent seminar on innovation in digital technology enterprises in Beijing.  

“With the arrival of a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud computing are thriving, giving rise to new industries and productive forces like intelligent manufacturing and the digital economy, which has the potential to lead the global economy out of stagnation,” said Sui Jigang, a researcher at the Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

Sui is the principal author of the newly released book Technological Innovation and New Quality Productive Forces, which was unveiled at the seminar.  

Digital elements and technologies such as data, information, computing power, and algorithms are no longer merely auxiliary tools in the traditional sense. Instead, they directly participate in the production process, closely integrating with traditional inputs such as labor, capital and other technology to jointly create value. This has expanded the scope of these inputs, enhancing the efficiency of productivity, thereby transforming into new quality productive forces, wrote Sui in the book.  

He said he believes that digitalization, characterized by low-carbon and intelligent solutions, is key to developing new quality productive forces.. 

“Digitalization is not simply an extension or continuation of industrialization,” said Liu Shangxi, President of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences. Supporting Sui’s view on the importance of digitalization, Liu emphasized that we should not regard the current digital revolution simply as the fourth industrial revolution, as doing so would underestimate the transformative impact of the digital economy.  

This may lead us to interpret new phenomena with traditional logic, thereby falling into misconceptions. Placing new quality productive forces within the framework of traditional industrialization could diminish their potential impact, he added. 

Liu raised the example of data, a key element of the new form of economic development, to explain his viewpoint. He said that in the industrial society, the concept of ownership was highly emphasized, but in the current context, ownership is diminishing in significance, while rights to usage and benefits are becoming more prominent. Data is not about securing ownership first and then transacting; rather, data rights are established through transactions and usage. The value of data is determined by its context, surpassing the traditional logic of establishing ownership before transactions. 

Xu Heping, former Director of the Research Office of the Ministry of Science and Technology, agreed that developing future industries driven by digital technology should not rely on traditional industrial-era practices.  

He said that emerging industries are undergoing fundamental changes in industrial logic. In the industrial economy era, the focus was primarily on technology, products, and production capacity. However, in the digital intelligence era, there is a greater emphasis on building an industrial innovation ecosystem. 

Xu emphasized that a highly challenging question is how innovation drives development. He said there are specific correlations between science, technology, innovation, industrial development and economic development.  

“Excellence in science does not automatically translate to technological advancement, and technological prowess alone does not ensure economic success,” he said, continuing that industry plays a pivotal role in this dynamic. “For technology to effectively propel economic development, it must be effectively integrated into industrial applications.” 

Xie Fusheng, a professor of economics at Renmin University of China, said the primary issue at present is the lack of transformation in the mode of production. While some “dark factories,” factories operating with minimal human activity, have shown signs of using new quality productive forces, a significant shift in China’s overall economy requires the formation of a new digital industrial ecosystem. 

This entails developing a social division of labor model where leading enterprises collaborate with specialized and cutting-edge companies, as well as large-scale production enterprises. The future form of new quality productive forces will be characterized by nationwide coordination and on-demand production, he said. 

The seminar was hosted by the China Renmin University Press. 

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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