Guizhou ramps up efforts to become a big data hub

Guizhou, one of the fastest-growing provinces in Southwest China in terms of GDP growth, is aiming to become a big data hub, welcoming global investors to commercialize their emerging technologies, officials said.

Guizhou was once known as a mountainous region with one of the largest poor populations in China. In 2018, its GDP surpassed 1.48 trillion yuan ($221.3 billion), up 9.1 percent year-on-year, 2.5 percentage points higher than that of the country as a whole.

The growth rate ranked second among 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the mainland last year. It topped the list in 2017, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.