Making platforms the centre of the digital industrial system is the defining feature of how the digital economy organises itself, and a key lever for building digitalised, intelligent, international industry, supply and innovation chains. By combining data, computing power and algorithms, platform enterprises match supply and demand precisely and help form a higher-level dynamic balance in which demand pulls supply and supply creates demand.
In a sense, competition in the global digital economy is competition among platforms: super-large platforms have become a key factor in every country’s digital cooperation and competition. Supporting platform enterprises to grow stronger is therefore a priority for the period ahead.
What platforms contribute
Platforms are the carriers of industrial ecosystems. As organisers, they integrate manufacturers, suppliers and service providers into a data-centred, network-coordinated, co-created division of labour, lifting resource allocation, coordination and service capability – and freeing SMEs from the limits of their own resources while cutting procurement and management costs. As demand-matchers, they pool commerce, logistics, capital and data flows, use big data to match supply and demand precisely, and let manufacturers judge markets, schedule capacity, dig up new consumer needs and design promising products – while creating ‘long-tail markets’ where small businesses and slow-moving products find their niche.
Platforms lead innovation ecosystems. Open platforms aggregate developers and service providers, continuously releasing demand for development and operations work and seeding technology innovation ecosystems; platform big data also anchors collaboration between manufacturers and R&D institutions and helps discover new markets.
Platforms support inclusive trade. Cross-border e-commerce has lowered the threshold of international trade, driving rapid growth in high-frequency, small-value transactions and shifting trade from big-company, bulk-cargo models toward broad SME participation and fragmentised transactions. New-generation platforms combine goods and services trade into full-chain, one-stop cross-border supply chain services – logistics, finance, information and credit – solving pain points for small foreign traders.
Platforms are also major providers of jobs and public services: low entry thresholds and rich tiers of work absorb workers of every education and skill level, and some super-large platforms now carry public-infrastructure attributes.
The gaps to fix
Platforms still face real problems: weak innovation in key foundational areas, scarce innovative talent; industrial internet development lagging, with digital penetration in services, industry and agriculture below advanced-economy levels; insufficient platform data opening and sharing; and regulation that has not kept pace with platform growth. The response must balance development and regulation, grasp how platform economies actually work, and build a sound governance system.
Five moves follow. First, strengthen platforms’ independent innovation – raise their participation in major national science and technology programmes and open national research facilities to them, encouraging R&D investment. Second, build the digital talent pipeline – expand relevant disciplines in universities and vocational colleges, use training institutions and platforms themselves, and recruit globally. Third, enrich industrial internet applications – deepen the fusion of platforms with consumer markets, industry and public services, driving traditional industry upgrades. Fourth, build effective mechanisms for platform data sharing – establish rules for data rights confirmation, trading, management, use, security rating and privacy protection, so industries can share data lawfully and platform-led data industry chains can form. Fifth, improve regulation – refine antitrust and anti-unfair-competition implementation rules, clarify compliance boundaries, punish practices that harm consumers and fair competition, and encourage platforms to use big data to raise their own governance, fostering a healthy ecosystem of coexistence and innovation.
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