The harmonious coexistence of small and large companies key to shaping a better digital economy: scholars
By Wang Zi
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Large and small companies must cooperate in order for the digital economy to innovate and grow, Gao Hongbing, Vice President of Alibaba Group and Director of AliResearch, said at the 2019 New Economy Think Tank Summit on January 4 in Beijing.

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Gao Hongbing, Vice President of Alibaba Group and Director of AliResearch, delivering a keynote speech at the 2019 New Economy Think Tank Summit on January 4 in Beijing, with the theme “Discerning the Future.”(Photos provided by the summit)

The New Economy Think Tank Summit is an annual event hosted by AliResearch, the research arm of the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group. This year’s summit featured US Economist George Gilder, British-Venezuelan Economist Carlota Perez, Zhang Qiong, the former deputy director of the State Council legislative affairs office, Professor Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University, Liu Ying, deputy director of Tsinghua's Huashang research center, and scholars from China and abroad, as well as officials from Alibaba. Together they discussed the value of the digital economy, innovation and competition.

Scholars said that innovation and competition create huge value for digital platforms. Frequent innovation and dynamic competition have injected great vitality into the digital economy and brought increasing value to society. 

Perez said that new technologies are there to help make social transformation. “A better, healthier, more exciting way of life is possible. A more advanced, safer, and more competitive and sustainable economy is also possible,” she said.

Taking Alibaba as an example, Gilder said, "Alibaba is not a central and dominant company, but a platform whose purpose is to empower and help. It helps new entrepreneurial companies and supports new entrepreneurs."

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George Gilder, a tech guru and futurist, has reinterpreted capitalism through the same information theory that enabled the computer revolution and the rise of the Internet. 

It is very important that an enterprise must have strong market innovation and competition abilities, Gao said. An enterprise must have the ability to constantly pass its innovations to the market, to society, to partners and even to competitors through its creativity. “It’s what we call the value of universal benefit in business. But most important is, when a digital economy platform serves consumers, we must guarantee the interests of consumers.”

In this era of great changes, the insight of the leading thought valued much more than before. Gilder said, "In this era, the economy grows as fast as the innovation of ideas." Since the first summit was held in 2016, the New Economy Think Tank Summit has focused on key topics such as new technology, new economy, new governance, new think tanks, and new responsibilities. It has become a first-class platform for new concepts, and led to cutting-edge ideas and great insights on the digital economy and governance.