China draws up plans for national cybersecurity park

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China planned a world-class national cybersecurity industrial park to cultivate a 100 billion yuan (15 billion US dollars) cybersecurity industry in Beijing by 2020.

The national-level industrial park will be jointly built by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the Beijing Municipal government, and is expected to be the cradle for at least three multi-billion yuan tech companies by 2020, and contribute 330 billion yuan to China's gross domestic product growth.

Though the exact location of the park has yet to be announced, authorities are betting that it will attract large firms and startups, and further build upon the cybersecurity industry, worth 45.71 billion yuan, or 6.91 billion US dollars this year.

Currently, half of China's cybersecurity companies are registered in Beijing, and six of them have over one billion yuan in annual revenue.

In 2016, the scale of China's cybersecurity industry saw an increase of 21.7 percent and it is expected to grow 32.85 percent this year.

Chongqing, a municipality in southwest China, has incorporated a similar cybersecurity park that aspires to be worth more than 11 billion yuan by 2020.

Private tech firms, including Qihoo 360 and Baidu, have been driving big money into the area.

Chen Zhaoxiong, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, said the ministry would promote innovation in core technology, especially in the research and development of the industrial Internet, AI and big data.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency