Why does China have to build new infrastructure?

In the era of industrial economy, the movement of people and things constitutes the basis of economic development, and economic activities are based on the traditional infrastructure represented by "railways, highways and airports", and the transportation hub area has comparative advantages; In the era of digital economy, the circulation of data has become the key, and the new infrastructure represented by information infrastructure, integration infrastructure and innovation infrastructure has also been transformed into new regional competitiveness.

In March this year, since the central authorities repeatedly mentioned speeding up the construction of "new infrastructure", Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang, Chengdu, Rizhao and other places have successively issued three-year action plans to promote the construction of new infrastructure; Guangzhou also focused on digital "new infrastructure" and took the lead in publishing the "Three-year Action Plan for Accelerating the Development of Digital New Infrastructure in Guangzhou (2020-2022)".

Local "new infrastructure" plans are rolling out new infrastructure construction action plans with a cycle of 2020-2022, and strive to achieve greater results within three years. Based on the local industrial development foundation, industrial support ability, regional undertaking ability and innovative development ability, all localities set out from actual needs and build new infrastructure according to local conditions.

1. construction goal: build "cloud, network and terminal" and transform "iron, public and machine"

Shanghai has defined four key areas of "new network, new facilities, new platform and new terminal", Beijing has focused on six major directions of "new network, new elements, new ecology, new platform, new application and new security", and Yunnan has put forward four major areas of "new network, new platform, new engine and new carrier" ...

Around the "cloud, network and terminal", various localities have defined specific indicators for a number of tasks and described the blueprint for construction in the next three years. For example, according to Zhejiang's plan, by 2022, about 25 large-scale and super-large cloud data centers will be built in Zhejiang Province, taking the lead in completing the layout (networking) of dual gigabit broadband networks, and the intelligent level of infrastructure in key areas will be improved by more than 20% (end).

At the same time, promoting the digital upgrading of traditional infrastructure such as transportation, energy, water conservancy and municipal administration is also the focus of three-year actions in various places. For example, around the "new terminal", Shanghai plans to build an intelligent "sea and air" hub facility, build a leading domestic vehicle-road collaborative vehicle networking and smart roads, and accelerate the deployment of new energy terminals and smart grid facilities.

2. Investment deployment: establish a diversified investment mechanism.

New infrastructure projects have a large investment scale and a long cycle, so the problem of "where does the money come from" needs to be solved in the construction of new infrastructure projects.

In the "new infrastructure" plan, different investment plans have been made in various places. For example, Zhejiang plans to complete nearly 1 trillion yuan of new infrastructure investment in three years, and proposes to strive to build a leading benchmark province for new infrastructure investment; Guangdong has established a digital "new infrastructure" project library to focus on project investment; Shanghai explicitly supports banking financial institutions to set up special credit projects with preferential interest rates for "new infrastructure" with a total scale of more than 654.38+000 billion yuan, demands to enlarge the leverage of special financial funds, and encourages and guides social capital to increase investment in "new infrastructure".

Corresponding to the release of the three-year action plan, many places have also included new infrastructure in the list of special debt investment, guiding special debt to support new infrastructure investment. Among them, in the process of issuing special bonds and supporting financing for projects, it is necessary to prevent and resolve the hidden debt risks of local governments. Recently, dushan county, Guizhou Province, which has built the "World's No.1 Water Affairs Bureau Building" with more than 40 billion debts, also revealed that the investment in "new infrastructure" should avoid problems such as over-construction, over-investment and overcapacity.

Therefore, the promotion of "new infrastructure" also needs to be planned as a whole and implemented step by step according to the financial resources and debt situation.

3. Empowering cities: "New infrastructure" optimizes urban production and life

"New Infrastructure" is an important carrier for building smart cities and enhancing regional core competitiveness. In the "new infrastructure" plans of various places, building new infrastructure with local characteristics and applying "new infrastructure" to serve local development will be the main theme in the next three years.

On the one hand, "new infrastructure" needs to be fully considered in combination with regional characteristics. For example, the Shanghai plan proposes to explore and lead the Yangtze River Delta Demonstration Zone to add new infrastructure features on the basis of the style of Jiangnan water town. This requires not only making full use of local resources such as land, capital, talents, water, electricity, gas and network, but also considering the carrying capacity of the region. For example, Shanghai Internet Data Center Construction Guide (20 19) has banned the construction of new IDC in the central area of Shanghai due to energy consumption considerations.

On the other hand, accelerating the construction of new infrastructure is also an important support for optimizing the governance system of megacities. For example, Beijing has deployed smart government applications, smart city applications, smart people's livelihood applications, smart industry applications and SME empowerment around "new applications"; The Action Plan for New Major Infrastructure Projects in Chongqing (2020-2022) also requires that project planning should consider the need to accelerate the construction of "smart towns" and "smart cities".

In 2020, new infrastructure was written into the government work report for the first time, and together with "new urbanization construction" and "major projects such as transportation and water conservancy construction", it became the focus of the government to expand effective investment in that year. As the country accelerates the positive layout of new infrastructure construction, new infrastructure will provide technical support for the development of digital economy, promote the growth of digital economy and promote the upgrading of digital economy-related industries. China's economy will also accelerate towards a new digital era based on "new infrastructure".