The Belt and Road is an international cooperation initiative proposed by China, which includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.  It aims to promote the development of countries and regions along the Belt and Road through connectivity and economic cooperation, including the construction and improvement of transportation, energy, communications, water conservancy and other fields.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative.  In the era of the Internet of everything, information and communication infrastructure plays a key role, just like water and electricity.  Enhancing information connectivity is one of the necessary conditions for implementing the Belt and Road Initiative.

The white paper on Jointly Building the Belt and Road points out that jointly building the Belt and Road will adhere to innovation-driven development, seize the opportunities of digital, networked and intelligent development, explore new forms of business, new technologies and new models, explore new growth drivers and development paths, and help all parties achieve leapfrog development.  All parties should work together to enhance digital infrastructure connectivity, advance the construction of the Digital Silk Road, strengthen innovation cooperation in cutting-edge science and technology, promote the deep integration of science and technology with industry and science and technology with finance, improve the innovation environment, pool innovation resources, promote the formation of regional collaborative innovation pattern, and narrow the digital divide.  Inject strong impetus into common development.

In the past ten years since the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, there have been many bright spots in the construction of the Digital Silk Road.  Positive progress has been made in the construction of a number of international submarine optical cables, 130 cross-border land optical cable systems have been completed, 5G base stations, data centers, cloud computing centers, and smart cities have been extensively built, and traditional infrastructure such as ports, railways, highways, energy, and water conservancy have been digitalized and upgraded.  Key projects such as the China-Asean Information Port, the China-Europe Digital Freight Train, and the China-Arab Online Silk Road have been fully advanced, and the Digital Silk Road global big data platform has enabled data sharing in multiple languages.

The construction of the Digital Silk Road cannot be achieved without the active participation of the ICT industry chain.  Ict companies actively respond to the national "Belt and Road" initiative and participate in the construction of information network infrastructure in countries and regions along the "Belt and Road", which not only helps local communities eliminate the "digital divide", improve Internet coverage, and help local communities build high-quality "information Silk Road", but also gain a foothold in overseas markets.  Become a beneficiary of the Belt and Road Initiative.