China needs ‘groundbreaking’ policy changes to embrace disruptive technologies
- Disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence and quantum computing, will significantly alter the way that consumers, industries and businesses operate
- China should make ‘groundbreaking changes’ to its industrial policymaking amid its push to become a global technological and economic leader, analysts said
China needs to adjust its industrial policymaking to brace for possible revolutionary changes to its economy by disruptive technologies, analysts said.
From artificial intelligence (AI) to quantum computing, and from room-temperature superconductivity to controllable nuclear fusion, disruptive technologies are set to significantly alter the way that consumers, industries and businesses operate.
China’s economic miracle over the past four decades has been based on carefully crafted industrial policies and imported technologies to realise economies of scale and reduce production costs.
This model has been adopted by other economies in East Asia during their development in the second half of 20th century.
How to achieve a shift from the selective industrial policy paradigm to the functional policy paradigm has become critical and urgent
“As frontier technologies, no one knows what technology truly has promising prospects, which could ultimately be screened out by the market through competition,” Huang Shaoqing, a professor of economics at the Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said in a report.