China will become the global leader

of the internet of the future
中国将领军未来全球互联网

 

By Luigi Gambardella (Xinhua)

鲁乙己 （新华网）

Mr. Luigi Gambardella speaking in a panel discussion of the 4th World Internet Conference

(Photo by the Beijing News)

鲁乙己先生在第四届世界互联网大会的专题讨论会上发言

In Europe, we are used to joke about why women so much appreciate French and Italian men and why Germans produce the best cars in the world. This may sound like stereotypes, but there is a truth behind it. Latin lovers are curious about their partner and her interests. They want to make her feel special and seek to anticipate their wishes: make a remark that tunes in into her thoughts, invite her to a restaurant she will like, give her a present that she was silently dreaming about. In fact, Latin lovers spend a lot of time talking and listening so as to understand and predict their partner’s wishes. And nothing is more seducing for a women, than a man who can anticipate her wishes. Northern Europeans spend that time at work or designing new products. Their view is that economic success will allow them to afford all commodities that women could dream of.

 

在欧洲，我们常戏谑为什么女人如此欣赏法国男人和意大利男人，为什么德国人生产的汽车是世界上最好的。在这听似固有偏见的背后却隐藏着一个事实。拉丁情人对他们的伴侣及其爱好充满好奇。他们希望让她感到特别，并尽力揣度她的心思：把话说到她的心坎里，邀请她到一个她喜欢的餐厅，给她一件她心心念念的礼物。事实上，拉丁情人用大量的时间去交谈和聆听，来了解和预测他们的伴侣的愿望。对于一个女人来说，没有什么比一个能预见她的愿望的男人更具诱惑力了。北欧人则把这些时间花在工作或设计新产品上。他们的观点是，经济上的成功能够让他们买得起女人们梦寐以求的所有商品。

This reflects the dilemma of mankind: invest time in affective relations or in productive activities?

 

这恰恰反映了人类的困境：要把时间投入到情感关系还是生产活动中去呢？

 

But the internet will soon allow to overcome the dilemma. The dilemma will be the common threat of the gathering this weekend of the most influential key decision makers and high tech company leaders in Wuzhen for the World Internet Conference.

 

但有了互联网，这一困境将很快得以解决。而这一两难问题也正是本周末在乌镇参加世界互联网大会的众多极具影响力的关键决策者和高科技领域业界领袖们需要面对的共同威胁。

Opening ceremony of the 4th World Internet Conference at Wuzhen

在乌镇举行的第四届世界互联网大会开幕式

Open sharing goes together with digital economic development. Open sharing generates consumer data, which on its turn, allows better focusing products and services. This is what is known as the revolution brought about by big data and artificial intelligence. And China is now in the lead for two reasons.

 

开放共享与数字经济发展比肩而行。开放共享催生消费者数据，从而使产品和服务更加具有针对性。这就是众所周知的大数据和人工智能所带来的革命。而中国目前在上述领域处于领军地位原因有二。

 

The first is a huge market of more than a billion consumers. The essence of ‘big data’ is to use data from an as vast as possible population to find correlations and predict future behavior. The size of the Chinese market contributed decisively to the success of Ctrip and Alibaba. These companies collected a massive amount of data about consumer choices. In a second stage, their algorithms deduced from these data, predictions allowing to make targeted proposals to clients, which on its turn, increased sales.

 

第一，中国拥有十几亿消费者的巨大市场。“大数据”的本质是利用尽可能多的人口数据来找到相关性并预测未来的消费行为。中国市场的规模对携程和阿里巴巴这样的企业的成功起到了决定性的作用。首先，这些公司收集关于消费者选择的海量数据。随后，他们通过算法对这些数据进行处理，为客户提供有针对性的建议，从而增加销售量。

 

A second reason is the tremendous development of IT processing power. Predictive algorithms are still in their infancy but can be improved and refined by computers on the basis of whether or not the predictions derived from these algorithms materialized. The world’s fastest computers are China’s Sunway TaihuLight at China’s National Supercomputing Center and the Tianhe-2 at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou.

 

第二，信息技术处理能力突飞猛进的发展。尽管目前预测算法仍处于初级阶段，但是一旦通过这些算法得出的预测能够具体化，那么预测算法将可以通过计算机进行改善和精进。值得注意的是，中国拥有世界上最快的计算机——中国国家超级计算无锡中心的神威·太湖之光和国家超级计算广州中心的天河二号。

 

At the same time, China can still learn from Europe. Today two paradigms for the development of the internet are competing: the Chinese model, government led, and the US model, Wall Street led. The problem that I see with the US model is that Wall Street has no interest for the rural areas. The ‘digital divide’ is a hot issue also in Europe. President Xi Jinping’s October speech for the 19th Party Congress reflected concerns in China, very similar to these in Europe. Avoiding a digital divide at the expense of the rural areas is a priority issue. Like in other areas, China and the EU share very similar concerns.

 

同时，中国可以从欧洲借鉴经验。今天，互联网发展的两种范式正在竞争：由政府主导的中国模式和由华尔街主导的美国模式。我认为，美国模式的问题在于，华尔街对农村地区没有兴趣。“数字鸿沟”也是欧洲的一个热门话题。习近平主席在十月召开的中国共产党第十九次全国代表大会上的讲话反映出的中国所关心的问题与欧洲关心的问题十分相似。避免出现以农村地区为代价的数字鸿沟是一个需要优先考虑的问题。像在诸多领域一样，中国和欧盟所关心的问题是十分相似的。

 

More than many European countries, China is confronted with massive migration from rural areas to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area. In the digital age, it should no longer matter so much whether you live in the capital town or rural areas. But what we see is massive network investment in the densely populated areas and less or no investment in the poorer, rural areas. Given its geographic size, the problem is even more acute in China than in European countries. But solutions are similar. I think for example that a government led single 5G and fiber network deployment in the rural areas, open for all Chinese telecom operators, would be a best practice of China that would be copied globally.

 

与许多欧洲国家相比，中国所面临的大量人口从农村地区涌入京津冀地区的现象尤为突出。在数字时代，住在首都还是住在农村地区应该不再那么重要。但我们看到的是人口稠密地区有大规模的网络投资，而在较贫穷的农村地区对网络的投资则相对较少或根本没有。鉴于中国的地域规模，其所面临的问题比欧洲国家还要尖锐。但解决方案是相似的。我认为，例如，在农村地区，部署由政府主导的、向所有电信运营商开放的、单一的5G和光纤网络将是中国的一个最佳实践，也必将被全球复制。

 

The global advantage of China is in equipment and services relating to high capacity digital communications. However, opportunities for China will only be maximized if globally fiber to the home networks are deployed, which will also serve as the basis for 5G networks. There is a ‘chicken or egg’ paradox. If Chinese industry wants to reap the full benefit of its technological leadership, a pre-condition is the global deployment of pervasive fiber to the home networks. Chinese companies should therefore cooperate and create joint-initiatives with European fiber to the home companies, to help the latter in increasing their footprint. Once deployed, fiber networks will be the super-fast internet infrastructure on which Chinese artificial intelligence will thrive.

 

中国在大容量数字通信设备和服务领域占据优势。然而，只有全面部署光纤入户网络，中国的机会才会得到最大化，这也将成为5G网络的基础。有一个“先有鸡还是先有蛋”的悖论。如果中国业界想要充分利用其技术领先优势，先决条件之一就是普及光纤入户。因此，中国企业应该与欧洲企业合作，共同倡导光纤入户，帮助欧洲企业拓展光纤网络。一旦成功部署，光纤网络将成为中国人工智能蓬勃发展的超高速互联网基础设施。

 

As an Italian, I should likely fear that outcome. Once the Chinese developed artificial intelligence will allow any man in the world to learn and anticipate the wishes of his partner, we Latins will lose our current unique advantage.

 

作为一个意大利人，我可能更应该担心这一成果。一旦中国人发展的人工智能技术使得世界上的任何人都可以学习和预测他们伴侣的意愿，那么我们拉丁语系的人将失去目前独特的优势。

 

(The author is President of ChinaEU)

 

（本文作者为中欧数字协会主席）

 

Please click here to view the original article.