Booming Digital Industries

Home to China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, Hangzhou's digital economy has developed by leaps and bounds over the years.

At Alibaba's annual computing conference in September, Alibaba Group's cloud computing arm, Alibaba Cloud, launched the 2.0 version of the ET City Brain system, an upgraded version of a cutting-edge project which aims to improve city management by virtue of big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

It is expected that by 2022, the "City Brain" system will become more efficient and comprehensive in expediting the city's urban management, especially in the fields of transportation, public securities and medical care, so as to provide digital support for the upcoming 2022 Asian Games.

According to official statistics, the digital economy was one of the major drivers for the city's economic performance in the first half of 2018, whose revenue hit 445.6 billion yuan ($64.08 billion), a surge of 22.8 percent over the same six months last year. The added value accounted for more than 25 percent of the city's GDP.

Alibaba Cloud launches the 2.0 version of the ET City Brain system, which is able to cover all 420 square km of urban areas in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou. [Photo/VCG]