(Yicai) July 5 -- China's digital economy grew rapidly last year to account for about 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product, with digital empowerment enabling steady economic growth, according to a new official report.

The value of the country’s digital economy rose by more than CNY12 trillion (USD1.7 trillion) in 2023, the Digital China Development Report released by the National Data Bureau showed.

China’s GDP reached CNY126.06 trillion (USD17.4 trillion) last year, after expanding by 5.2 percent, ahead of the government’s 5 percent target.

China had built 62 lighthouse factories by Dec. 31, or 40 percent of the world's total, the report said. These are manufacturing plants recognized for spearheading the use of cutting-edge technologies and digitalization to drive productivity, efficiency, and sustainability.

China has been the world's largest online retail market for 11 straight years, with internet sales jumping 11 percent to CNY15.4 trillion last year, and the role of the platform economy continues to strengthen, according to the report.

China had 3.38 million fifth-generation base stations as of the end of last year, up 46 percent from a year earlier, with the number of 5G mobile phone users reaching 805 million, accounting for 47 percent of the total, the report said.

The country’s computing power reached 230 EFLOPS last year, ranking second worldwide, having 14 national supercomputing centers, 633 ultra-large and large-scale data centers, and 60 intelligent computing centers, per the report.

Investment in high-tech manufacturing rose 9.9 percent in 2023, while that in high-tech services jumped 11.4 percent, according to the report, with investment and financing in smart manufacturing pushing ahead.

Generative artificial intelligence has also become a new investment hotspot. Its three sub-sectors -- general large models, metaverse/digital humans, and AI chips -- secured the most financing last year, with funding for general large models increasing rapidly.

Following land, capital, and technology, data is gradually becoming a source of value creation as a new factor of production, Liu Liehong, director of the NDB, said at the Global Digital Economy Conference in Beijing, held from July 2 to today.

The NDB will publish eight papers this year on data property rights, data circulation, income distribution, security governance, public data development and utilization, corporate data development and utilization, high-quality development of the digital economy, and guidelines for constructing data infrastructure, Liu said.

Editor: Martin Kadiev