Intensive construction of new infrastructure to support high-quality urban development

In the information age, new infrastructure is an important and decisive factor for high-quality urban development, providing a solid foundation for building a cyber power, a digital China and a smart society. At present, China's new infrastructure has played an important role in the process of urban economic and social development, but there are also problems such as repetitive construction, blind investment, greed for innovation, and low input-output ratio. It is necessary to coordinate the construction of new infrastructure from four aspects: top-level design, demand traction, mining characteristics, and long-term operation. We will give full play to the role of new infrastructure in supporting high-quality urban development.

First, the new infrastructure plays a significant role in supporting high-quality economic and social development

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has successively deployed development strategies such as broadband China, network power, digital China and smart society at the national level, which have greatly promoted the construction and development of information infrastructure. According to the "Digital China Development Report (2020)", during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China's information infrastructure construction scale is leading the world, and the world's largest optical fiber network and 4G network have been built. By the end of 2020, the number of Internet users has reached 989 million, the Internet penetration rate has reached 70.4%, and 718,000 5G base stations have been built. 5G terminals connected more than 200 million data. In addition, the construction of integrated infrastructure, represented by the digital transformation of infrastructure in the fields of transportation, water conservancy, energy, and municipal administration, has continued to accelerate, making the city's perception ability and thinking level achieve a leap forward, innovative infrastructure has strongly supported science and technology research, and the national major science and technology infrastructure has played a leading role in scientific and technological innovation and economic development.

From the perspective of urban development, the scientific and rational layout and effective application of new infrastructure plays a fundamental role in improving the energy efficiency of urban management, the level of service and the quality of economic development. In the short term, the investment and construction of new infrastructure plays a positive role in stabilizing investment, expanding domestic demand, increasing employment and driving economic growth. 5G base stations, smart charging piles, and data centers have become hot spots for planning and investment construction. New business forms and new models enabled by new infrastructure have flourished. Help enterprises to resume work and production; Online shopping and unmanned distribution ensure the efficient circulation of the domestic consumer market. In the long run, the new infrastructure itself is the meaning of high-quality urban development, which is conducive to deeply empowering the modernization of urban governance system and governance capacity, promoting the facilitation and inclusiveness of social services, the application of urban integrated management service platform has improved the city's perception, thinking, and emergency response capabilities, and the cross-provincial communication office and the one-Netcom office have facilitated the mass enterprises from the government service side. Smart medical care and smart education make it possible to realize cross-regional and cross-level flow sharing of scarce resources. The changes in industrial structure brought about by the construction of new infrastructure and the concentration of high-end factors promote the optimization of local industrial environment, the reshaping of industrial structure and the construction of innovation ecology, and the new infrastructure has become an inevitable choice to enhance the core competitiveness of the future development of cities.

Second, local governments are speeding up the construction of new infrastructure, but there is also the problem of duplication of investment

Due to the construction of new infrastructure and the localization of services, local governments have become the main body of planning and important participants in investment and construction, hoping to accelerate economic and social transformation and development through the construction of new infrastructure. At the provincial level, the "2020 White Paper on the Layout and Development of New Infrastructure in Chinese Cities" released by CCID Research Institute shows that the number of new infrastructure projects in Anhui, Guangdong and Jiangsu, the top three in the country, reached 280, 165 and 109, respectively, and Chongqing focuses on new infrastructure construction from 2020 to 2022. In accordance with the principle of "mature batch, start batch, reserve batch", we will focus on promoting 7 major sectors, 21 special projects, and 375 projects, with a total investment of 398.3 billion yuan. The proportion of new infrastructure in Hebei, Shandong and Guangdong is as high as 43.5%, 35.0% and 34.1%. At the city level, Hefei proposes to implement no less than 200 new key infrastructure projects from 2020 to 2022, with a total investment of no less than 200 billion yuan; Kunming has proposed 394 key projects focusing on new infrastructure such as 5G, data center, artificial intelligence, industrial Internet and Internet of Things, with a total investment of 1001.18 billion yuan, of which 58.984 billion yuan is planned to be completed in 2020; Guangyuan City has specified that from 2020 to 2022, 70 new infrastructure projects will be implemented, with a total investment of 17,642.27 million yuan.

Compared with the traditional infrastructure, the new infrastructure has the characteristics of high technical content, strong application and fast depreciation speed. High technology content means that the construction of new infrastructure is mainly based on the application of new generation of information technology such as cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, and promotes the integrated development of the real economy, with high barriers to entry of information technology. Application empowerment means that the construction of new infrastructure is driven by data production factors and takes "digital industrialization and industrial digitalization" as the main line, which can give play to the amplification, superposition and multiplication of "digital factors" on economic development, generate a large number of innovative application scenarios and new forms of industry, tap and cultivate new drivers of economic growth, and form new advantages of economic growth. Fast depreciation means that the construction of new infrastructure is based on the application of a new generation of information technology, emphasizing rapid iteration and accelerated depreciation, and may face replacement needs in three to five years, which is completely different from traditional infrastructure such as roads, Bridges, railways, which emphasizes safety and durability, and the quality goal is usually decades. Based on the above three characteristics of new infrastructure, if local governments, in order to pursue short-term economic development and follow the trend of new infrastructure construction, blindly and impulsively plan new infrastructure-related projects, over-emphasize new and foreign projects and deviate from local needs and development realities, it may cause local debt crisis and squeeze investment in other areas. The final social and economic benefit is far less than the input.

Third, promote intensive joint construction of new infrastructure in light of local conditions

The new infrastructure has become an important support for the high-quality development of cities, and is an advantageous option to improve the energy level and quality of cities. If a city ignores the construction of new infrastructure, it will be at a disadvantage in a number of competitions, such as the layout of smart scenes in the field of urban governance and people's livelihood, the play of the enabling role of digital elements, the digital transformation of the whole industry, and the operation of smart cities, which will ultimately affect the overall competitiveness of the city. Local governments need to focus on four areas when planning investments and participating in the construction of new infrastructure.

1. Strengthen top-level design and carry out new infrastructure construction in a coordinated and intensive manner.

In light of the needs of the construction of a new smart city and the development of the digital economy, we will adhere to a global, systematic, market-oriented, and entrepreneurial thinking, carry out scientific planning and overall layout, and promote the development of large networks, big data, big platforms, big services, and big industries with the idea of "both soft and hard" and "virtual and real management". On the one hand, accelerate the construction of physical physical space "hard facilities", incorporate 5G and other information infrastructure construction planning into national space planning, take into account the needs of future urban governance and industrial development, and increase the opening-up of government agencies, public places, municipal facilities, social towers, residential communities and commercial buildings. Promote the joint construction, sharing and sharing of public infrastructure such as 5G base stations, video surveillance, and iot sensing terminals. On the other hand, strengthen the management of virtual cyberspace, promote the construction of "soft facilities" such as artificial intelligence algorithms, digital mechanism models and knowledge maps, improve the effective governance level of various "soft" virtual resources and intangible factors, improve data governance capabilities, and make up for the shortcomings of "soft assets" governance.

2. Focus on demand and carry out new infrastructure construction in advance.

The construction of new infrastructure should not only build the "base" of infrastructure in the new era, but also provide the core "engine" for industrial transformation, consumption upgrading, service quality improvement, and economic efficiency, and reflect the construction value with "application results". First, the construction of new infrastructure projects should adhere to the demand orientation, problem orientation and goal orientation, start from solving the most urgent problems of local economic and social development in the post-epidemic era, adapt to the new expectations of the people for a better life, driven by the needs of the government, enterprises and the public, with application results as the core and business objectives as the guide, and scientifically carry out project demand analysis and calculation. The second is to avoid simple construction-oriented, technology-oriented and project-driven, and realize the scientific calculation design of new infrastructure construction from "strategic goal" to "business application goal" to "system construction goal". The third is to avoid blind construction, redundant construction and extravagance and waste, based on the economic, applicable, advanced, efficient, low cost and high efficiency of the new infrastructure development road, to provide the broad masses of the people with useful, affordable and well-used new infrastructure and services.

(3) Focus on characteristic mining and create new infrastructure projects tailored to local conditions.

China has a vast territory, and there are obvious differences in resource endowment and development level among different regions, so there are different demands and urgency for new infrastructure construction. We should orderly carry out new infrastructure construction based on our own industrial development foundation, industrial support capacity, regional undertaking capacity and innovative development capacity. For Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other major gathering places of industry, technology and capital, we should pay attention to high-tech empowerment and application scenario innovation, promote the in-depth application of artificial intelligence, industrial Internet, blockchain and other technologies, accelerate the digital transformation of the economy and society, lead the development of a new round of scientific and technological infrastructure construction, and create a model for the construction and application of new infrastructure. For the central and western regions, especially the less developed regions, on the basis of making up for the shortcomings of traditional infrastructure, we should focus on the needs of people's livelihood and industrial development, accelerate the construction of communication network infrastructure such as 5G and the Internet of Things, promote the application of distance education, telemedicine and teleconference, and narrow the gap in the supply of public services with developed regions.

(4) Strengthen long-term operation and play the role of data empowerment of new technical facilities.

The long-term operation level is an important index to test the effect of new infrastructure investment. If the long-term operation level is low, the economic and social output of new infrastructure may be lower than the input, and the expected effect cannot be achieved. First, give full play to the role of the new generation of information technology in empowering and upgrading traditional infrastructure, accelerate the construction of integrated infrastructure with data as the key element, and force and promote the social management system, governance structure, public services, and industrial layout to be more rational, optimized, transparent and efficient with the smooth flow, open sharing, and ubiquitous integration of data. Second, we will give full play to the role of digital amplification, superposition and multiplication of economic development, accelerate the pace of digital industrialization and industrial digitization through the construction of new infrastructure, and bring about new models, new forms of business and new industries of the digital economy. Third, further open up market access for new infrastructure construction, promote innovation in management mechanisms, capital operation, and operation models, and make use of diversified cooperation models such as agent construction system, government purchase of services, and PPP to create endogenous driving forces, viable business models, and market profit mechanisms for sustainable development of new infrastructure construction projects. It will provide "new engines" for high-quality economic development and form a new situation of building "new driving forces".