At the 15th Five-Year Plan, digital and intelligent development was placed in a prominent position, promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of service trade and empowering all industries in an all-round way.
At the recently held Fifth Global Digital Trade Expo (hereinafter referred to as the "Digital Trade Expo"), Hangzhou, Ningbo, Zhoushan and Yiwu (hereinafter referred to as "Hangzhou-Ningbo-Zhoushan-Yiwu") released a cooperation initiative on promoting the facilitation of cross-border trade among Hangzhou and Ningbo, and signed two agreements on jointly advancing the high-quality development of bulk commodity trade and cooperation among cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones.
The coordination of "Hangzhou-Ningbo-Zhoushan-Yiwu" and the linkage of "digital ports, oil and commerce" became a major highlight.
Regarding how data elements can play a role in "digital ports, oil and commerce," Ying Qi, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Data Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hangzhou Data Group"), said in an interview with a reporter during the Digital Trade Expo that computing power is the foundation, data is the fuel, scenarios are the soil, and finance is the living water. The four empower each other and work together in coordination, jointly forming the complete capability puzzle for the data group to serve urban linkage.
Exploring Integrated Data
Statistics show that the four places of "Hangzhou-Ningbo-Zhoushan-Yiwu" contributed nearly 90% of the province's service trade volume and nearly 60% of the actually utilized foreign investment in the service industry, making them an important growth pole for Zhejiang's opening-up.
The logic behind the linkage of the four cities can be summarized as "digital ports, oil and commerce," namely the core advantages of the four places: Hangzhou has digital technology and platforms, Ningbo has port hubs and bulk commodities, Zhoushan has oil, gas and iron ore resources, and Yiwu uses small commodities to link the world.
In November 2024, with the approval of the State Council, the country's first bulk commodity resource allocation hub was unveiled and established in Zhejiang.
Regarding this four-city linkage, Yan Jin, vice president of China Base Ningbo Group Co., Ltd., told reporters that the country's first bulk commodity resource allocation hub has landed in Zhejiang, and the linkage of the four places can promote the construction of the hub. Future competition is competition in resource allocation capabilities, achieving efficient, safe and low-cost allocation so that international resources can quickly radiate across the country.
It is worth noting that in June this year, 10 departments in Ningbo jointly launched 18 measures, clearly proposing to build a digital platform covering all links of service trade, transactions, logistics and financing, expand the application scope of technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence and digital identity, and provide systematic solutions to the "difficulty of confirming rights and difficulty of circulation" in bulk commodity trade.
A relevant person in charge of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce said in an interview with reporters that next, Zhejiang will further strengthen the "Hangzhou-Ningbo-Zhoushan-Yiwu" coordinated opening matrix and amplify the superimposed effects. "First, promote track segmentation and complementary advantages. Hangzhou will amplify its opening advantages in digital services and technological innovation services, Ningbo and Zhoushan will strengthen international shipping, maritime and bulk commodity supply chain services, and Yiwu will strengthen cross-border commerce and trade services. Second, promote channel interconnection and platform interoperability, deepen the linkage of the 'four ports' of seaports, airports, land ports and digital trade ports, explore rail-water intermodal transport and river-sea intermodal transport, and promote complementary advantages. Third, promote mechanism coordination and standard co-construction, break down barriers to the flow of factors, and promote cross-regional alignment of port supervision, market rules and service standards."
In Yan Jin's view, only when everyone in the trade chain is under the same standards and same data can resources be allocated efficiently, safely and at low cost. In the second half of hub construction, what is being competed for is not warehousing and throughput, but the credibility of trade.
Giving Play to the Value of the "Foundation"
During the interview, a relevant person in charge of the Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commerce told reporters that from January to August 2026, Zhejiang's digital trade import and export volume reached 662.06 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%, with Hangzhou expected to account for nearly half. Hangzhou aims to serve as the digital connector for coordination among the four places, taking the Digital Trade Expo as the traction and Binjiang, Xiaoshan and Qiantang as industrial carrying areas, to make every effort to build the core area of the global digital trade port.
In March this year, during the Hangzhou-Ningbo twin-city supply and demand matchmaking meeting, the trusted data spaces of the two cities achieved facility connectivity and mechanism mutual recognition. Through city-wide functional nodes, Hangzhou currently lists 1,038 data products and Ningbo lists 108. Data flows bidirectionally between Hangzhou and Ningbo and is matched on demand, turning "data islands" into "data archipelagos" and opening a new path for exploring the integration of Zhejiang's data trading market.
In promoting the linkage of the four cities, data elements will play a foundational "base" effect. Regarding how local data groups can help the open development of artificial intelligence and the service industry, Ying Qi said that core capabilities should be built from four aspects.
"First, the computing power foundation capability. At present, 'Hangzhou-Ningbo-Zhoushan-Yiwu' has built the country's first liquid-cooled ten-thousand-card cluster, launched the Hangzhou computing power scheduling service platform, and manages more than 13,000P of computing power, exploring Zhejiang's path of 'government-led, market-operated and scientific research-supported.' Together with relevant departments, it has built the Hangzhou Artificial Intelligence Industry Innovation Center, comprehensively integrating factors such as computing power, data, models, policies, scenarios and finance," Ying Qi said.
"Second, the capability to transform data elements." Ying Qi said that relying on the Hangzhou Data Exchange and the Data Element Innovation Center, it has built a full-chain service system for the resourceization, productization and assetization of data, forming the Hangzhou solution of a trinity of "trusted data space + high-quality data sets + trading platform," and establishing a cooperative ecosystem with more than 600 data merchants. "Our goal is to make every piece of data visible, measurable and tradable."
"Third, the capability for open operation of scenarios. These scenarios of the data group are not only outlets for services, but also 'training grounds' for artificial intelligence models and data products. Fourth, enhance the capability for coordinated financial capital. We are committed to enabling capital to understand technology and technology to find scenarios, realizing a virtuous cycle of industrial investment, scenario expansion and capital returns," Ying Qi introduced.
Reporters learned that in recent years, Hangzhou Data Group has accumulated a number of high-frequency application entrances such as citizen codes, citizen cards, QinQing Online, Qianjiang Score, internet hospitals and the public transport one-code pass, connecting the government, enterprises, citizens and the industrial ecosystem.
In addition, Hangzhou Financial Investment Group Co., Ltd., the parent company of Hangzhou Data Group, strategically holds multiple financial licenses including banking, trusts, financial leasing, consumer finance, enterprise credit reporting and personal credit reporting, manages Hangzhou's 100-billion-level M&A fund with a scale of more than 62 billion yuan, has invested in more than 1,100 projects cumulatively, and has promoted 121 projects to list domestically or overseas.