Big data looms large in Guizhou

Over the past half decade, Guizhou province has attracted investment and projects globally from more than 9,500 companies, some of which are household names - Google, Apple and China's own Alibaba and Tencent.

The rapid growth of the tech industry, which now contributes more than 20 percent of the province's GDP, received new momentum as far back as March 2014, with President Xi Jinping's call to develop big data.

Joining a group discussion with deputies from Guizhou during the annual session of the National People's Congress that year, Xi noted that the province had advantages that could help it fuel the growth of big data. Then, on a subsequent trip, Xi asked the province to be strategically innovative and to discover ways to attract big data investment and develop the electronic information industry.