Pony Ma, chairman and CEO of Tencent at 2018 China (Shenzhen) IT Summit (Photo/NBD)

Mar. 26 (NBD) -- To build a digital China entails the development of the digital economy with Internet plus as a method, Pony Ma, chairman and CEO of China's technology titan Tencent, said in his speech delivered at 2018 China (Shenzhen) IT Summit held on Sunday.

According to Ma, China's real economy could transform into digital economy by the aid of the Internet and new types of infrastructure. The country should also enhance digitalizing update in the public service field such as government services, so as to solve social issues and improve people's wellbeing.

China's digitalizing process speeds up

With the wide application of cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence (AI), China's digital economy is seeing rapid growth and public services efficiency are being improved. 

Ma pointed out that the popularity and development of infrastructure including intelligent terminals, 3G and 4G technology enables the integration of online and offline things. Manufacturers are now able to directly connect with consumers, which is not possible in the past.

The changing organizational structure and production relationship made China's digitalizing process faster than developed countries, Ma commented.

While the Internet is deeply applied in various industries, digitalization is expanding from the economic field to the social livelihood field. The country begins to focus on quality development of the economy instead of the high speed growth.

Tencent eyes connections between online users and offline services

With regard to the changes that the internet technology brought to industries, Ma noted that the traditional economy and new economy is complementary and can be integrated with each other. For example, smart retail stores, groceries and supermarkets have started to use WeChat mini programs to complete orders. 

Ma further discussed Tencent's strategic plan in the smart retail filed, saying that the company will not conduct retail business itself but will focus on providing connection services and underlying technology support, such as cloud technology and AI. Ma stressed that the company is eyeing connections between WeChat users and offline services. 

The new retail business is regarded as a way for the technology giant to extend from online to offline fields. Ma also said the better Tencent does in offering connection services, the bigger the benefits are. Such services are expected to create new opportunities for its payment services, financial services, cloud services as well as advertising services, noted Ma.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn