Using “digits” to drive growth: Beijing sets benchmarks and establishes its blueprint as a city of digitalization

On July 4, the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference results release event was held at the Beijing National Convention Center in Beijing. Photo by Wang Ziru.

China News Service, Beijing, July 5 (Reporter Lü Shaowei, Xu Jing) At the 2026 Global Digital Economy Conference themed “Building Digital-Friendly Cities—Smart Wisdom Without Boundaries, Connecting the World Digitally,” nearly 40 global senior delegations and more than one thousand industry guests held in-depth exchanges and dialogues around core topics in key areas such as artificial intelligence, digital governance, and data factors.

The conference was held in Beijing from July 2 to 5. It achieved new highs in international coverage and industry linkage, which also shows that the value of the digital economy is increasingly highlighted across more industries, and that developing the digital economy has become a consensus in an ever-growing number of countries and regions.

During the conference, multiple major achievements were released in sequence, including the “Global Digital Economy City Development Report,” the “Global Digital-Friendly City Evaluation Guidelines,” and the “2026 Global Digital Economy Lighthouse Cases,” providing a set of measurable, replicable, and scalable guides for digital-friendly development.

Among them, the “Global Digital Economy City Development Report” states that “digital-friendly” is an important value direction for future urban digital transformation. The release of the “Global Digital-Friendly City Evaluation Guidelines” marks the first time that a unified, general international evaluation standard for digital-friendly cities has been established in this field. The “2026 Global Digital Economy Lighthouse Cases” solicitation covered more than 60 countries across six continents; ultimately, 13 benchmark cases were selected from 308 valid submitted projects, including multiple successful Beijing-local practices such as the “Beijing Office” intelligent government affairs coordination office platform and the Beijing “Car-Road-Cloud” demonstration application.

The “Beijing Digital Economy Development Report (2025-2026)” blue book launched at the conference results release event mentions that in 2025, Beijing’s digital economy added value exceeded 2.4 trillion yuan, up 8.7% year-on-year, accounting for 46.4% of GDP. In the global digital economy benchmark city index evaluation, it ranked second and remained steadily among the “global leading cities.”

This year’s conference additionally added three international institutions—the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the World Data Organization, and the Global Digital Economy Cities Alliance—as co-organizers, with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the International Trade Centre serving as supporting units. The United Nations Development Programme Digital-Friendly and Sustainable Digital Economy Development Innovation Laboratory has officially been set up in Beijing. During the conference, national-country innovation cooperation projects were also unveiled, and the Beijing overseas-going base online comprehensive service platform was launched, providing end-to-end support for enterprises to expand global markets. In the future, branding forums such as the Industrial Innovation Conference will introduce nearly 20 industry rules and standards to promote digital-industry-friendly development.

During the conference, Xu Haoliang, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, said that Beijing will fully leverage its leading advantages in the field of global digital economy innovation. At the same time, within the cooperation framework, efforts will be made to explore more inclusive and more efficient pathways for implementing digital transformation.

From standard setting to activating factors, from industrial upgrading to global coordination, and from governance enhancement to inclusive benefits for people’s livelihoods, Beijing is using a systematic “digital methodology” to drive comprehensive digital transformation in all aspects. The multiple achievements of this year’s conference are not only a phased answer to Beijing’s efforts to build a global digital economy benchmark city, but also provide a reference for global digital city development that combines technical rationality with human warmth. (End)

(Editor: Wen Jing)

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