… the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project will surely have a profound impact on cooperation in the “One Belt, One Road” digital economy … Just as goods need a place to be transshipped, stored, and processed, large amounts of data also need a place to be stored and processed. The “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project can meet this need … By transforming the ability to process data into a new competitive advantage for development … the western region becomes the “server” for the “Digital Silk Road” and continuously promotes construction of the “Digital Silk Road” in a deeper and more realistic way. …我国推进“东数西算”工程，必将对“一带一路”数字经济合作形成深远影响 … 正像货物需要转运仓储、加工的地点一样，大量的数据也需要存储、处理的地点。”东数西算” 工程可以满足这些需求 … 把数据处理能力转化为新的竞争发展优势，将西部地区打造为“数字丝绸之路”的“服务器”，不断推动“数字丝绸之路”建设走深走实。
China Trade News, “A “One Belt, One Road” Perspective on “Eastern Data, Western Computing,” April 12, 2022
Beijing envisions the international extension of Digital China as not merely exporting hardware, but strategically positioning its data and computing systems as indispensable infrastructure for the digital economies of partner countries.
China Trade News published an article today outlining the anticipated impact of China’s Eastern Data, Western Computing project on the Digital Silk Road. Unsurprisingly, the assessment is optimistic, especially from Beijing’s perspective.
Eastern Data, Western Computing is a national-level system-engineering project led by the National Development and Reform Commission, aligned with its broader effort to build a nationally integrated system (体系) of big data centers. Both initiatives fall under China’s New Type Infrastructure framework. China Trade News itself is directly subordinate to the Ministry of Commerce’s China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, placing the article firmly within China’s trade policy discourse.
The article opens by noting that the digital economy has become a key driver of China’s growth, particularly through expanding cross-border e-commerce with Belt and Road countries. Chinese digital enterprises, the author argues, are steadily increasing their overseas footprint, setting the stage for Eastern Data, Western Computing to reshape digital cooperation along the Belt and Road.
According to the author, realizing this potential requires three conditions.
First, China must improve regional coordination and accelerate the circulation of data elements to create a functioning data market. This entails establishing foundational data systems and standards, including data security, rights protection, and cross-border data transmission mechanisms.
Second, Eastern Data, Western Computing is presented as the infrastructure backbone for the Digital Silk Road itself. While years of Belt and Road construction have produced extensive physical infrastructure, the author argues that what is still lacking is the circulation of data, services, capital, and continuously updated digital content necessary to support a digital economy. China’s western regions, endowed with growing computing capacity, are positioned to process and mine and process this data, effectively serving as the computing backend for the Digital Silk Road and helping to create a New Development Pattern.
Third, the project is framed as a transferable development model for Belt and Road countries. Although many of these economies are described as “relatively backward,” the digital economy is portrayed as a source of new opportunity. Beyond infrastructure, success would require talent, capital, and technology, areas where Chinese enterprises are encouraged to take the initiative while advancing their own international expansion.
Read together, the article offers a revealing glimpse into how Beijing envisions the international extension of Digital China: not merely by exporting hardware, but by positioning China’s domestic data and computing systems as indispensable to the developing digital economies of partner countries.