As the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–25) approaches its conclusion, China has witnessed a stream of successes in integrating the digital and real economy. Figures indicate that in the first five months of 2025, core industries of the digital economy grew 10% year-on-year, while nationwide corporate spending on digital technologies rose 9.7%. To date, over 30,000 elementary-level smart factories and over 1,200 advanced smart factories have been established. This accelerating integration is fueling industrial upgrading and efficiency gains. 

Building new strengths in the digital economy was a central goal set out in the 14th Five-Year Plan. Over the past five years, amid the convergence of the ongoing technological revolution and industrial transformation, China has leveraged its vast data resources and diverse application scenarios to deepen the integration of digital technologies with the real economy. These efforts have powered the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, spurred the emergence of new industries, business formats, and models, and strengthened new engines of growth—marking a new stage in digital-real economy integration.

The impact of integration is now evident across manufacturing, retail, healthcare, agriculture, transportation, and cultural tourism. Ma Shuzhong, director of the China Academy of Digital Trade at Zhejiang University, observed that manufacturing remains the primary sector driving this integration, as digital technologies are now being embedded throughout all aspects of corporate production and operations. Enterprises are achieving comprehensive integration internally, across the full value-chain lifecycle and within entire supply-chain ecosystems.In retail, Ma added, digital technologies have enabled online-offline integration, breaking spatial and temporal barriers to deliver precision marketing and personalized services. In agriculture, the application of the Internet of Things, big data, and AI has enabled precision farming and intelligent management. In transportation, digital technologies have improved the efficiency of traffic management and operations, supporting the development of autonomous driving and intelligent transportation systems. Meanwhile, technologies such as virtual and augmented reality have enriched tourist experiences while advancing the preservation and transmission of cultural heritage.

As a pioneer in digital-real economy integration, Zhejiang Province in east China took the lead in 2021 by introducing the innovative “Industrial Brain” development model. Built upon the industrial internet and with data as a key resource, the “Industrial Brain” integrates industrial, supply, capital, and innovation chains. It bridges government and market functions while linking production and consumption, providing digital empowerment for enterprise production and operations, digital services for industrial ecosystem development, and digital tools for economic governance.

Under this model, Zhejiang has accelerated both industrial digitization and digital industrialization, fully unleashing the multiplier effects of data as a production factor. This has encouraged more capable manufacturers and industrial clusters to proactively pursue intelligent transformation and upgrades. At present, the province’s experience with the “Industrial Brain” has been adopted in Shandong, Chongqing, Jiangxi, and other regions.

The deep integration of the digital and real economy is propelling China’s high-quality economic development toward a systematic leap in total factor productivity, an intelligent reshaping of industrial ecosystems, the large-scale emergence of new quality productive forces, and the equitable sharing of developmental achievements. Yin Zhentao, deputy director of the National Academy of Economic Strategy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, emphasized that digital technologies are transcending their role as mere tools. By coupling deeply with traditional factors such as capital, labor, and land, they are reshaping production methods, while data circulation is breaking down barriers and unlocking the potential of these factors.

Yin also noted that digital technologies effectively bridge regional and social development gaps. Rural e-commerce allows agricultural products from remote areas to reach national markets directly, while “new digital infrastructure” enables county-level enterprises to enter global supply chains at low costs. These dynamics, working synergistically, are steering China’s economy toward a more efficient, intelligent, and inclusive future.