Why Guizhou Is Counting on Big Data to Change Its Future

Here in 2018, big data is a big deal in China, and nowhere is this truer than in Guizhou, a remote, impoverished province in southwestern China where the provincial government is trying to build a big data industry from scratch. As He Yuan -- a manager at the Shanghai-based company Beige Big Data, which has an office in Guizhou -- put it to me in a recent visit to the province: "Everyone wants a piece of big data … Many still haven't figured out what the term means, exactly." Despite this lingering confusion, the Chinese government seems fully invested in what The New York Times columnist David Brooks refers to as "data-ism" -- the belief that "everything that can be measured should be measured; that data is a transparent and reliable lens that allows us to filter out emotionalism and ideology; that data will help us do remarkable things -- like foretell the future." And Guizhou -- a province less commonly associated with cutting-edge technology and more often with rugged mountains, poor soil, and extreme poverty -- is trying to position itself at the forefront of this nationwide push. Yet for all its leaders' grand ambitions, several hurdles remain to be overcome.