The big data industry has become a business card of Guizhou, but its industrial status is also being challenged by two neighboring provinces and municipalities.

At the end of 2017, Chongqing put forward the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy led by big data and intelligence, and identified 12 key development areas of big data and other intelligent industries; in 2018, Ya'an City, Sichuan Province, planned to build a big data industrial park, positioning itself to serve the informationization of Sichuan and Southwest China as a "mega data center " to create a big data center in western China.

But at present, the competition among the three places in the big data industry is not obvious, and there is a tendency to strengthen cooperation and staggered development.

Ya'an's advance

Ya'an's strategy to develop big data began in 2018. In accordance with the requirements of "vigorously developing the big data industry, creating a big data basic service base, Internet data center and arithmetic supply center in western Sichuan, and constructing a big data center in western Sichuan", Ya'an planned the Western Sichuan Big Data Industrial Park with a total area of 2.65 square kilometers and a capacity of 2.1 million servers.

"The advantages that Guiyang has, Ya'an has." Luo Ling, president of the Sichuan Industrial Economic Development Promotion Association, told the first financial reporter that Ya'an and Guiyang are both developing the front-end of the big data industry, that is, the storage and calculation of big data, which has relatively high requirements for temperature and air cleanliness, and most importantly, Ya'an and Guiyang have the advantage of electricity prices.

Guizhou is known as a cool city with abundant water and coal resources and low electricity prices. And Ya'an also has nearly 65% forest coverage, known as the natural oxygen bar, cool climate and small temperature difference, while Ya'an is rich in hydropower resources, and water abandonment phenomenon is serious.

In fact, the direct motivation for Ya'an to develop big data industry is the construction of hydropower consumption industry demonstration area in Sichuan.

Sichuan is rich in hydropower resources, and after several years of large-scale development, the problem of water abandonment has gradually come to the fore. State Grid Sichuan Power Company data show that from 2012 to 2017, the Sichuan power grid peak abandoned water power were 7.6 billion kWh, 2.6 billion kWh, 9.7 billion kWh, 10.2 billion kWh, 14.143 billion kWh, 13.996 billion kWh.

Sichuan's abundant hydropower resources have also attracted an influx of bitcoin mining companies over the past few years. Local small and medium-sized hydropower plants offer low electricity prices for these mining companies.

In 2018, the Sichuan provincial government issued the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Sichuan's Electricity System" to deepen the elemental market-oriented reform with a focus on the reform of the electricity system, and explore the construction of a number of demonstration zones for hydropower consumption industries, with a view to basically solving the problem of water abandonment within two to three years. Opinions also identified Ganzi, Panzhihua, Ya'an, Leshan and other hydropower consumption industry demonstration areas.

Ya'an is one of the top ten hydropower bases in the country, and as of the end of 2017, Ya'an had an installed hydropower capacity of 12.67 million kilowatts, with the installed scale of commissioned hydropower ranking second in Sichuan Province. However, due to the restrictions on power transmission channels, coupled with the slowdown in the growth of the provincial electricity load, the amount of abandoned hydropower in Ya'an has been increasing year by year, and in 2017, the amount of abandoned hydropower in Ya'an was more than 12 billion kilowatt-hours.

Big data centers require a large amount of electricity, belonging to the high energy-carrying green industry, therefore, the development of big data industry has become a key industry to consume hydropower. Ya'an chose to develop the big data industry has received strong support from Sichuan Province, and has taken a road of Guiyang in the development mode.

On February 26, 2019, the framework agreement on the purchase and sale of electricity for the "Western Sichuan big data industry" in the Ya'an Hydropower Consumption Demonstration Zone was signed. According to the agreement, during the five natural year trading cycle from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2023, State Grid Sichuan Comprehensive Energy Service Co., Ltd. will ensure that Ya'an's big data enterprises enjoy preferential tariffs, and settle at an average of 0.34 yuan/kWh for the whole year.

The development of big data in Guiyang is also the first breakthrough from the preferential electricity price.

In 2016, Guizhou Province, in order to promote the rapid growth of the industrial economy, to promote the comprehensive electricity price of large industrial enterprises from 0.56 yuan / kWh to an average of 0.44 yuan / kWh, of which the price of electricity used by large-scale data centers to 0.35 yuan / kWh.

According to public information, about 70% of the operating costs of data centers come from the price of electricity, compared to the large industrial electricity price of 0.5 to 0.6 yuan / kWh, the preferential price is very competitive. For example, the Huawei data center located in Guian New District, Guizhou, a phase of 600,000 storage servers, according to the price of electricity in Guizhou at the time of 0.456 yuan / kWh, you can save more than 600 million yuan a year in electricity costs.

And Ya'an opened a more competitive electricity price than Guiyang, attracting a number of enterprises to move in. On June 28 this year, Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, Tianyi Cloud, Kingsoft Cloud and other 12 IDC (Internet Data Center) projects signed into the Western Sichuan Big Data Industrial Park, with a total investment of 4.5 billion yuan. In addition to the previously settled projects, the Western Sichuan Big Data Industrial Park has signed a total of 21 projects, the total investment of more than 9.5 billion yuan.

China, Chongqing and Guizhou competing

Ya'an big data industry has just started, and its goal is more practical. According to the plan, Ya'an strives to become a first-class provincial big data ecological highland by 2020; by 2021, the basic formation of a perfect big data industrial ecology, the output value of the information industry to reach more than 8 billion yuan, big data-related practitioners to reach more than 2,000 people, big data industry has become the city's emerging pillar industries.

Luo Ling said, Sichuan's advantage lies in the industrial base is relatively good, the economic volume is relatively large, the development of big data has an industrial base, many local need big data center industry system has settled in Ya'an, the formation of big data leading enterprises gathered.

At the same time, Ya'an's "ambition" is not only the front end of the big data industry. Big data industry to serve advanced manufacturing and modern service industry, in order to have industrial integration effect. In the construction of the big data industrial park at the same time, Ya'an also synchronized planning of the big data creative park, recreation and health digital town, regional e-commerce center.

Before Sichuan, Guizhou's big data industry has been challenged from Chongqing. The investment winds of some giants changed after Chongqing proposed an action plan to implement an innovation-driven development strategy led by big data and intelligence.

In 2014, Ali Cloud Big Data Center settled in Guizhou, Ali also announced that it would build Guiyang into a global filing center and technical support center; in 2017, Tencent built a seven-star green data center in Guiyang, which is also an extra-high-level disaster recovery data center. But then, Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and other giants are making key investments in Chongqing.

In January of this year, Alibaba's Chongqing Intelligent Center settled in Liangjiang New District. Recently, Alibaba's battalion teams of Alibaba's Aliyun, b2b, Retail Pass, Koubei, Damei, AliFilm, Ant Gold Service, Cainiao, and Ali Group's Customer Experience Division, have officially moved into the center.

At the same time, following Guizhou, Chongqing has also been approved as a national big data comprehensive pilot area.

Luo Ling believes that, compared to Guizhou, the development of big data in Sichuan and Chongqing have their own industry, market demand. For example, Chongqing has a strong foundation in automotive, electronic information and other industries, and it is very promising to lead with big data intelligence.

But at present, Sichuan, Chongqing and Guizhou three places in the big data industry competition is not obvious. Not only that, Chongqing and Guizhou as two national big data comprehensive pilot area is also strengthening cooperation. The "Chongqing-Guizhou Cooperation Advance Demonstration Zone Construction Implementation Program" released in March this year also takes big data as one of the key industries to be developed in the Chongqing-Guizhou Cooperation Advance Demonstration Zone.

The program proposes to integrate the elements of technological innovation in the big data industry in the two places of Chongqing and Guizhou, *** with the building of a big data co-innovation platform; at the same time, to promote the integrated application of core support software, industrial Internet, industrial big data, intelligent equipment, intelligent manufacturing cloud service platform, etc., in the manufacturing industry, and to comprehensively promote the transformation of the traditional industries of the two places to intelligent, green, service-oriented.

And "Ya'an Municipal People's Government on accelerating the implementation of the development of big data industry opinions" also clearly put forward the implementation of staggered competition, differentiated development route. Efforts are made to carry out demonstration applications in the direction of big data basic services, Internet of Things and emergency industry, artificial intelligence and drones, blockchain and credit system, e-commerce and industry cultivation, and visual networking and public services.