Recently, the seminar on "Digital Technology Enterprise Innovation" organized by the Chinese Renmin University Press was held in Beijing, at which a new book "Scientific and Technological Innovation and New Quality Productivity" was released. The participating experts gave keynote speeches from various dimensions such as scientific and technological innovation, industrial innovation, digital economy, data elements, and patient capital, calling for the development of the digital economy to cultivate new quality productivity momentum, and encouraging more patient capital to escort enterprise innovation.
The meeting was chaired by Li Kailong, general manager of Chinese Renmin University Press. Li Yongqiang, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Renmin University Press, delivered a speech. Li Yongqiang said that the concept of "new quality productivity" shows the importance that the mainland attaches to scientific and technological innovation and high-quality development, and also reflects the innovation and development of Marxist productivity theory.
The digital economy is a matter of international competitiveness, and one step backward will fall behind
At the time of the current transformation of the old and new economic momentum, the state has clarified the strategic direction of "accelerating the cultivation of new quality productivity", and emphasized that "scientific and technological innovation is the core element of the development of new quality productivity".
The book "Scientific and Technological Innovation and New Quality Productivity" organized by researcher Wei Jigang of the Institute of Science and Technology Strategy Consulting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences pointed out that "with the rise of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud computing have flourished, forming new industries and new productive forces such as intelligent manufacturing and digital economy, which are expected to lead the global economy out of the downturn and open up new prosperity." ”
The development of the digital economy is of great significance, and it is a strategic choice to grasp the new opportunities of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation. According to data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in 2022, the scale of the mainland's digital economy will reach 50.2 trillion yuan, a nominal growth of 10.3% year-on-year, which has been significantly higher than the nominal GDP growth rate in the same period for 11 consecutive years.
Liu Shangxi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Secretary of the Party Committee and President of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, said that digitalization affects not only the economic field, but also the impact of the digital revolution is all-round and subversive. Therefore, when we develop new quality productivity, we must understand it in the context of the digital economy.
"China's digital economy is related to the overall development of China's digital economy, which is related to China's future competitiveness." Liu Shangxi said. He said that the characteristics of the digital economy determine that it "cannot catch up with each step and cannot catch up step by step" in international competition. For example, once the current artificial intelligence gap falls, it is difficult to catch up later, because it is not made by the laboratory, and the iteration of artificial intelligence technology is based on the social environment.
Sun Ke, deputy director of the Institute of Policy and Economics of the Chinese Academy of Information and Communications Technology, also said that the great power competition around information and communication technology is intensifying, and digital technology is the key to the competition.
As the main author of "Scientific and Technological Innovation and New Quality Productivity", Ji Jigang, a researcher at the Institute of Science and Technology Strategy Consulting of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and deputy director of the Institute of Innovation and Development Policy, believes that the digital economy is essentially in line with the general trends of new quality productivity, low carbon, and intelligence.
The book mentions that from the perspective of new quality productivity, digital-related elements or technologies, such as data, information, computing power, algorithms, etc., are no longer pure auxiliary tools in the traditional sense, but directly participate in the production process, and are closely integrated with traditional production factors such as labor, capital, and technology to create value together. The proposal and application of data elements have greatly expanded the scope of production factors, improved the level and efficiency of productivity, and transformed them into new quality productivity.
In recent years, China's digital enterprises have been actively deploying in key areas. The "Research Report on Digital Technology Invention Patents for Platform Enterprises" released by the Business School of Chinese University pointed out that key digital technologies represented by artificial intelligence are becoming the "main battlefield" for innovation and research and development of Chinese and American technology platform enterprises. China's technology platform enterprises, represented by Tencent and Baidu, have achieved rapid catch-up and partial surpassing of international enterprises in terms of patent scale, quality and technology distribution.
We cannot use the thinking of industrial civilization to develop the digital economy
Liu Shangxi said that digitalization is not a simple continuation of industrialization, so we cannot regard the current digital revolution as the fourth industrial revolution, then regard it as an aftermath of the industrial revolution, which belittles the disruptive impact of the digital economy. This is likely to lead us into misunderstandings based on traditional logic in understanding new things. If we put it in the framework of traditional industrialization to talk about new quality productive forces, the role will be greatly reduced.
For example, as a key element of the new economic form, Liu Shangxi said that the concept of ownership, which is very emphasized in the industrial society, is now fading out, and the right to use and the right to benefit are prominent. Data can only be confirmed in transactions and use, because the scenario determines the value of data, which transcends the traditional logic of confirming rights before trading.
On how to develop the digital economy and boost the development of new productive forces, Xu Heping, former director and researcher of the Research Office of the Ministry of Science and Technology, believes that it is necessary to understand the law of the development of contemporary emerging industries. Establishing and improving the industrial ecology is the basic logic and idea for the development of emerging industries. The development of contemporary emerging industries and future industries, the basic logic and thinking of the industry have undergone fundamental changes, and the technology, products, and production capacity that are mainly concerned in the era of industrial economy have moved to the era of digital intelligence, and more attention has been paid to the construction of industrial innovation ecology. How to build an industrial ecology? Elements, innovation systems, innovation carriers and innovation services should be developed simultaneously.
Xu Heping said that a very challenging question is, how can innovation drive development? In fact, science, technology, innovation, industrial development, and economic development have specific laws of linkage. Good science is not necessarily good technology, good technology is not necessarily good economy, industry is the key link. In order for science and technology to promote economic development, it must fall on the industry.
Sun Ke said that the biggest difference from traditional industrial technology is that digital technology is a group technological breakthrough. For example, information and communication technology technology is a fusion of many technologies, and when fused together, it can produce a 1 + 1 greater than 2 effect.
Xie Fusheng, a professor at Renmin University in Chinese and a distinguished professor of "Changjiang Scholars" of the Ministry of Education, believes that the main problem in China's economy is that there is no change in the mode of production. There are some "black light factories" that have shown signs of new quality productivity, but if we want China's entire economy to change, we must form a new digital industrial ecosystem, form a social division of labor model with the cooperation of leading enterprises + professional and special precision + large-scale production enterprises, and carry out configuration and on-demand production across the country, which is the specific form of new quality productivity in the future.
Liu Shangxi also believes that if you don't do ecology and competitiveness, no matter how technologically advanced the things you come out of, they are worthless in business.
In Liu Shangxi's view, platform enterprises are the micro foundation of the digital economy, and platform enterprises often form an economic ecology. For example, more than 10 years ago, our country made an operating system with performance no less than Microsoft, but it is difficult to industrialize, because Microsoft is actually a terminal platform and has formed an ecology, and this kind of competition is not a lonely single product competition.
Liu Shangxi stressed: If we follow the logic of industrialization to think about problems, consider policies, consider supervision, consider the relationship between the government and the market, and consider the relationship between the government and society, it will be difficult for us to jump out of the original box, and it will be difficult for us to have new ideas for reform.
Strengthen patient capital and create a policy atmosphere that encourages enterprise innovation
Sheng Chaoxun, director and researcher of the Strategic Policy Office of the China Macroeconomic Research Institute, analyzed how to escort the future industry and boost the development of new productivity from the perspective of strengthening patient capital.
He said that the risk of innovation is relatively high, and it may be a life or death. The process from idea to product is a chain structure formed by multiple links such as basic research, technological breakthrough, and application development. This is a process of high-tech, knowledge-intensive, and high-risk investment, which essentially requires venture capital, angel investment, venture capital and other diversified investments and long-term patient capital to help industrial technology survive the risky "valley of death" and "Darwin's sea" and solve the disconnect between technology and industry.
As of July 2023, the average lifespan of "specialized, special and new" small giant enterprises is 16 years, while the average lifespan of small and medium-sized enterprises in mainland China is only about 3 years. This data just confirms that enterprises known for innovation need time to incubate, and growth is inseparable from patient capital.
Sheng Chaoxun believes that capital is a very important "angel hand" in the process of future industrial growth, and the future industry from the original technology to innovation and even industrialization until the formation of new quality productivity process uncertainty is high, the investment is relatively large, the cycle is relatively long, and a number of real angel investment is needed.
On how to strengthen patient capital, Sheng Chaoxun said that it is necessary to vigorously cultivate counter-cyclical investors and angel capital with unique vision, professional and dedicated venture capital, patient and focused long-term capital and other sources of capital, so as to continue to support the future industrial development and the cultivation of new quality productivity.
However, he also emphasized that patient capital and long-term capital must first have long-term characteristics, and should be able to benefit from long-term investment, and the benefits should be higher than the returns of short-term capital fluctuations.
The key to developing new quality productivity is to stimulate the innovation motivation of more enterprises. The book "Scientific and Technological Innovation and New Quality Productive Forces" talks about the need to speed up the formation and development of new quality productive forces and to build a new type of production relationship that is compatible with the new quality productive forces, and the core of this is to properly handle the relationship between the government and the market. The first point is to continue to create an institutional environment conducive to scientific and technological innovation, especially to break down the obstacles that restrict enterprises from participating in market competition fairly, allow and continue to encourage the competitive development of a variety of technical routes, and truly encourage the majority of enterprises to participate in the innovation competition of the survival of the fittest and obtain innovation benefits.
The book also mentions that leading technology companies at the end of the industrial chain not only play an increasingly important role in the field of science and technology at home and abroad, but also demonstrate the unique value and global competitiveness of China's scientific and technological innovation through a series of innovative practices.
In terms of innovation investment, the R&D investment of Chinese digital enterprises, represented by Huawei and Tencent, has maintained a high growth rate for many years, and both of them rank among the top 20 in the world in terms of innovation investment. In terms of promoting applications, Huawei has ranked first in the world in terms of patent applications for many years, and Tencent has filed more than 75,000 patent applications worldwide, second only to Google among Internet companies. From the perspective of global competition, ByteDance has become the most valuable unicorn in the world......
"Scientific and Technological Innovation and New Quality Productivity" suggests that we should continue to strengthen the main position of enterprise innovation, accelerate the construction of high-level innovation consortiums, encourage leading scientific and technological enterprises to actively carry out international cooperation, continue to strengthen independent research and development and applied basic research investment, and promote strategic entrepreneurs to play a role.
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