“From the research point of view, the advantages of computing power first countries will be enhanced with the increase of computing power investment, strengthening computing power investment has become a new engine to promote industrial development, and computing power investment can promote the jump in economic growth rate.” From a certain point of view, ‘the future of the economy, the first to work on computing power’.” Li Donghong, deputy director of the Global Industry Research Institute at Tsinghua University, told Caixin on July 12.

On the same day, IDC, Inspur Information and Tsinghua University Global Industry Research Institute jointly released the “2022-2023 Global Computing Power Index Evaluation Report” (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”), the “report” assessed the computing power of 15 sample countries, and analyzed and summarized the development of computing power in the context of the digital economy. According to the report, at present, the top 3 industries in the world in terms of computing power are Internet, manufacturing and finance. In the past year, the computing power level of the manufacturing industry surpassed that of the financial industry for the first time, and was promoted to the second place.

Focusing on the relationship between computing power and economy and industry studied in the Report, as well as how to develop the computing industry in high quality, Zhou Zhengang, Vice President of IDC China, Zhang Dong, Vice President of Inspur Information, and Li Donghong, president of IDC China, interpreted the Report and carried out exchanges respectively.

Take the development of computing power as an important driving factor to promote high-quality economic development

The Global Computing Index study covers 15 countries on six continents, including: the United States, China, Japan, Germany, India, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Ireland, Singapore and South Africa (in order of 2022 GDP).

According to the report, for every 1 point increase in the computing power index of the 15 sample countries, the country’s digital economy and GDP will increase by 3.6‰ and 1.7‰, respectively. When the computing power index reaches more than 40 points, every 1 point increase in the national computing power index will increase the driving force for GDP growth to 1.3 times of that below 40 points. When the computing power index value reaches more than 60 points, the country’s computing power index increases by 1 point, its driving force for GDP growth will increase to 3.0 times when it is below 40 points, and the pulling effect on the economy becomes more significant.

Li Donghong interpreted the report around the economy and industry, and he believes that the development of computing power needs to be an important driving factor in the future to promote high-quality economic development.

Li Donghong further analysis, computing services should be diversified integration, in addition to cloud services, there should be a series of other services, integrated together to form a comprehensive computing service. For the front-runners, continued investment is needed to maintain the advantage. The manufacturing industry is a national tool, whether it is the leader or the pursuer, we need to consider the manufacturing industry at this level, increase the investment in computing power, so that the entire economy can obtain a better development prospects.

Zhou Zhengang said that by comparing the GDP of each country with the measurement of the level of computing power in these countries, it is found that for countries with a computing index score of 60 or more, the growth of computing power to the economic promotion is an accelerated process, and by comparing the survey last year, the situation is more obvious.

In 2022, the global economy faces great challenges, with GDP growth slowing significantly in many countries, and nearly half of the 15 countries participating in this assessment even recorded negative GDP growth year-on-year. However, in this context, ICT spending in all sample countries still showed positive growth, and the computing power index also increased.

In this regard, Zhang Dong believes that many enterprises will use digitalization as a means to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and will maintain a certain investment in computing power and information technology. Because investment in this area may reduce investment in other areas, digitization is still a key development direction, and there are advantages in the long run.

Zhou Zhengang said that under the pressure of the economy, more people will choose to optimize IT to achieve digital business, so as to improve their competitive position in the economic downturn environment, so as to survive the economic downturn. So the overall economy is declining, but the role of IT in the economy is becoming more and more obvious, and more people are choosing to retain or increase their IT budgets.