Digital News

China Southeast Big Data Industrial Park. Photo by Lin Shuangwei, Fuzhou Daily

On the factory floor, robotic arms move with precision while AI-powered quality inspection systems detect even the tiniest flaws. On the streets, “smart vehicles” travel on “smart roads,” while vehicle-road-cloud integration is opening up new possibilities for urban mobility. In the cloud, rapidly expanding computing power is fueling industrial transformation and enabling smarter, more efficient urban governance. Digital technology has become a defining feature of Fuzhou.

Where the Min River meets the sea, digital innovation is shaping the future. Aiming to become a leading city in building a Digital China, Fuzhou has actively explored new approaches and put them into practice, integrating digital technologies deeply into the city’s development. The city is advancing digital industrialization, industrial digitalization, and digital governance in tandem. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the added value of Fuzhou’s digital economy rose from RMB 464.6 billion to more than RMB 870 billion, helping drive the city’s GDP up by roughly RMB 100 billion a year. In 2025, Fuzhou’s GDP surpassed RMB 1.5 trillion.

Turning Data into Value

Unlocking Data’s Potential as a New Engine for Growth

Driven by a new wave of digital technological innovation, data has emerged as a new factor of production alongside land, labor, capital and technology. Cities across China are actively exploring how to unlock the value of vast amounts of data, and Fuzhou is no exception.

In 2024, the Ministry of Finance issued the Pilot Plan for the Whole-Process Management of Data Assets, with Fujian among the first provinces selected for the pilot program. In September that year, Fuzhou became the first city in the province to launch a pilot program for the whole-process management of data assets. In February 2025, Fuzhou issued the province’s first electronic fiscal receipt for non-tax revenue generated from data assets. The receipt, for RMB 100,723.20, was issued under the category “Revenue Generated from the Use of Data Assets by Public Institutions.” Fuzhou thus became the first city in the province to channel revenue from the paid use of data assets into the national treasury. This marked the beginning of efforts to incorporate data-related revenue into the public finance system.

In recent years, Fuzhou has worked to strengthen its digital infrastructure while expanding the use of data resources, laying a solid foundation for the development of Digital Fujian.

On the “infrastructure connectivity” front, Fuzhou has opened direct cross-Strait optical-fiber links and established a national Internet backbone direct-connection point. The city now has more than 54 Tbps of intercity internet egress bandwidth—the highest in Fujian—and more than 30,000 5G base stations, while its optical-fiber network provides full coverage across urban and rural areas. The Fujian Artificial Intelligence Computing Center is among the first nationally and the only one in the province approved to develop a national next-generation AI public computing-power open innovation platform. Fuzhou’s AI computing capacity exceeds 3,000 PFLOPS.

On the “soft connectivity” front, Fuzhou has continued to promote the market-based allocation of data as a factor of production. It issued the Pilot Plan for the Whole-Process Management of Data Assets in Fuzhou, setting out measures for compiling data asset ledgers and establishing a data asset catalog. The project “Putting Public Data to Work to Make Cultural and Tourism Benefits More Accessible” received an Excellence Award for Application Practice at the national finals of the 2025 “Data as a Factor ×” Competition.

With solid foundations in place and digital and physical connectivity strengthened, Fuzhou is accelerating the integration of data as a factor into economic value creation, ensuring that data can be supplied, flow freely, be used effectively, and be kept secure, driving economic and social development.

Putting Data to Work for Growth

Building New Momentum for Industrial Upgrading

Powered by digital technologies, Fuzhou is driving economic growth and transforming its industries. In recent years, the city has stepped up efforts to strengthen its next-generation information technology industrial chain and develop the “543X” framework for emerging digital tracks. A growing number of innovative, high-growth digital companies are emerging, providing a steady source of new momentum for the local economy.

At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, Fuzhou-based tech companies showcased a range of cutting-edge products and technologies. At Rockchip’s booth, an AI-powered TV demonstrated how ordinary 2D content can be rendered as 3D visuals in real time. Ruijie Networks showcased a complete rack-scale solution for computing supernodes, covering the entire chain from data-center architecture and equipment coordination to high-speed interconnection and large-scale deployment. Foxit Software presented two complementary solutions—trusted intelligent documents and AI-powered security protection—enabling AI to understand information while keeping security risks in check.

Certainly, the development of new quality productive forces does not mean neglecting traditional industries. Fuzhou is making intelligent upgrading and digital transformation key drivers of industrial modernization. The city is strengthening its industrial Internet platforms and exploring deeper integration of digital technologies, including big data, AI, and 5G, with traditional industries.

At the smart warehouse of Fuzhou Chengchang Machinery Co., Ltd. in the Southeast Auto City, automated operations are transforming the way components are handled. In the past, workers had to locate parts manually and transport them by forklift, making repeated trips across the warehouse. Today, smart equipment automatically handles the movement of parts in and out of storage, significantly improving space utilization and production efficiency.

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Fuzhou further advanced its smart manufacturing projects and the “Cloudification, Big Data, and AI Initiative,” and accelerated the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises. The city developed a total of 80 pilot and demonstration projects in information-related fields, including the industrial Internet, big data, the integration of next-generation information technologies, and the Internet of Things, under initiatives led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It also established 13 industrial internet demonstration platforms at the provincial level or above—the highest number in Fujian Province—which have collectively served 40,000 enterprises.

Harnessing the Power of Data

Bringing Digital Benefits to More People

The ultimate goal of building a digital Fuzhou is to ensure that residents can share in the benefits of digital development. The city is advancing digitalization in all aspects, developing a range of flagship applications in key areas including government efficiency, public services, people’s well-being and social governance. As digital technologies become increasingly embedded in everyday life, their benefits are becoming more tangible and accessible to residents.

Gulou District has a large number of older residential communities, making them particularly challenging to manage. Problems that once required repeated site visits to resolve can now be monitored and addressed from a single command center.

At the Gulou District Urban Operations Command Center, data on the economy, society, ecology, and other areas is displayed in real time on the large screen of the “Gulou Smart Brain.” As Fujian Province’s first district-level “city brain,” “Gulou Smart Brain” has established an integrated governance framework that brings data together in one place, provides a unified digital identifier for the entire district, offers a comprehensive view of urban operations, and enables coordinated management through a single platform. It has also created a metaverse-based 3D model of the entire 35.7-square-kilometer district, integrating perse data into the model, connecting it to a unified digital platform, assigning digital identifiers, and recording it on the blockchain. This gives authorities a clear, real-time picture of urban conditions and operations. “Urban problems used to be identified through routine inspections. Now AI finds them proactively, doubling the efficiency of governance,” said a member of the command center staff.

This “thinking city” is not just making urban management more efficient; it is also making everyday services easier and more convenient for residents. The Fuzhou Government Service Center has established a smart government services hall that operates around the clock, offering end-to-end, seamless services including one-on-one online consultation, smart applications, instant approvals and submissions, and convenient access to service results.

From governance to intelligent governance, and from making services available to making them easier to access, Fuzhou is turning the benefits of digital transformation into tangible improvements in people’s lives and making public services more convenient, efficient, and accessible.

Source: Fuzhou Daily

By Yan Lanping