The Party has now taken the next logical step in Building Digital China: upgrading propaganda itself. With the launch of CMG Digital China, Beijing is signaling that ideological work must also be digitally transformed, AI-enabled, and globally distributed. In other words, propaganda is no longer just messaging within Digital China, it is infrastructure for Digital China.
A new converged media outlet, CMG Digital China (CMG 数字中国), quietly launched on July 25. Its mission is not subtle: use high-end digital production, AI-enhanced media formats, and cross-platform distribution to drive the Party’s national digital strategy. This includes the strategy’s rising action plan, AI Plus (人工智能+). It is somewhat ironic that Digital China is late in getting its own digitally transformed media arm. But its arrival matters, because it signals a shift: AI-enhanced propaganda is now part of Digital China‘s technological upgrade.
Why call it propaganda? Because that is what it is built to be.
CMG Digital China is not a news outlet in the Western sense. It is an instrument of the Party’s ideological system. In short, CMG Digital China: (1) Answers directly to the Central Propaganda Department through the China Media Group hierarchy; (2) Produces tailored messaging designed to “empower” Digital China across industry, government, and society; and (3) Uses converged media (融媒体) technologies like AI interactivity, short/long video, and virtual formats to amplify Digital China as a national narrative.
The new program’s purpose is explicit: align public understanding, elite discourse, and industrial mobilization with the Party’s strategic goals. The innovation is not the propaganda itself. The innovation is that propaganda is now being produced and delivered through a fully digital, AI-driven communications infrastructure.
Who runs CMG Digital China?
The CMG Digital China outlet was jointly created by China Media Group (CMG) Shanghai Station, China Central Television (CCTV) Video, and Shuchuang Weilai (数创未来, literally Digital Innovation for the Future, or more commonly translated Digital Future) Media Technology Co, Ltd in Shanghai. CMG reports directly to the Central Propaganda Department and CCTV sits inside the same structure.
The name itself, CMG Digital China, signals its mission: communicate the Party’s priorities for Digital China in a modernized, converged format designed for both domestic mobilization and, over time, a global audience. This fits neatly with Xi Jinping’s emerging framework of Global Digitalized Development, and with the broader push to shape Digital China‘s “two environments” (domestic and international) through coordinated ideological, economic, and technological narratives.
What does CMG Digital China actually do?
For years, traditional media have produced dozens of Digital China-themed reports each day. CMG Digital China, judging from its first program, is a different product entirely: smoother, more curated, and technologically ambitious.
Its premiere report, already posted on You Tube, featured a polished “digital salon” highlighting Shanghai Voicecomm Information Technology Co., Ltd (上海声通信息科技股份有限公司), described as a “pioneering enterprise-level full-stack interactive AI firm.” The segment focused on the company’s applications in Smart City construction and government hotline data analysis (政务热线数据分析平台).
This is propaganda as demonstration effect: showcasing the capabilities, companies, and digital use cases that embody the Party’s goals for innovation capacity, AI Plus, Smart Cities, and data-driven governance.
Given its format and ambition, CMG Digital China is well positioned to evolve into an external-facing technology narrative channel, namely Digital China’s answer to global technology storytelling.
What is converged media, and why does it matter here?
As the China Media Project has analyzed, converged media refers to the fusion of traditional broadcasting, digital platforms, AI production tools, and interactive formats. In short, it refers to the “interconnection of information and communications technologies.” It is this communications model that matches Digital China‘s broader effort to informatize and digitalize every layer of governance and the economy.
CMG Digital China’s own description emphasizes this:
CMG Digital China is a converged media program that explores the artificial intelligence industry, visits innovative technology companies, and invites industry experts and scholars to deeply interpret the development of digital economy at home and abroad. The program uses CCTV Video and CCTV.com as the core communication platforms, and is disseminated across multiple media channels. | The program uses both special long video programs and multiple types of short videos. It features diverse formats including person-to-person interviews, the creation of digital salons, holding Digital China tours live from multiple locations, field visits, offline visits, and virtual experiences. This allows the audience to engage closely with development trends in the digital industry, and through in-depth exchanges with experts and entrepreneurs create influential top-tier IP in the digital economy.
《CMG数字中国》融媒体节目,走进人工智能行业,探访科技创新企业,邀请业内专家学者,深度解读国内外数字化经济发展。节目以央视频、央视网为核心传播平台,跨媒体多渠道传播;节目形式多样,融合数字会客厅、数字中国行、多地连线等呈现方式,让观众能够近距离接触数字产业领域。| 融媒体节目由长视频专题节目和多条短视频构成，形式多样，融合人物访谈、搭建数字会客厅、开展数字中国行多地连线、实地考察、线下活动、虚拟实践等呈现方式，让观众能够近距离接触数字产业领域发展方向，通过与专家、企业家深度交流，打造具有影响力的数字经济头部IP。
In other words, this is propaganda updated for the AI era: immersive, cross-platform, relentlessly multimedia, and tightly integrated with the Party’s economic and technological agenda.
CMG Digital China’s mission: empower the national strategy
The official mission statement for CMG Digital China is remarkably candid:
It’s a new era and a new journey. Accelerating the development of New Quality Productive Forces and building Chinese Style Modernization are the main tasks and goals of our country’s social development at this stage. “CMG Digital China” is a converged media program that will bring together institutions and enterprises that are leading research on digitalization, build an industry-academia research exchange platform for the government as well as institutions and enterprises involved in the digital economy, help develop China’s ‘Artificial Intelligence Plus’ top-quality ecosystem, and empower the construction of Digital China.
新时代新征程，加快发展新质生产力，建设中国式现代化是现阶段我国社会发展的主要任务和目标。《CMG数字中国》融媒体节目，汇聚数字化领军研究机构和企业，搭建政府、数字经济机构和企业的产学研交流平台，助力中国“人工智能+”优质生态圈发展，赋能数字中国建设。
This is not media explaining policy. It is media executing policy, an integrated communications and mobilization tool for Digital China’s domestic and international environments. CMG Digital China is all about “empowering Digital China” globally.