At 7 a.m., on the alpine pasture with an altitude of 4,700 meters in Gerze County, Ngari Prefecture,Dawa Tseringopened the smart animal husbandry management platform on mobile phoneto inspect the core dataof 120 yaks, includingthe real-time locations and individual body temperature. It vividly demonstratesthe digital and intelligent transformation of plateau animal husbandry.

5G signals have penetratedand development of digital intelligence has lit up the snow-covered plateau. In recent years, Xizang Autonomous Regional Party Committee and People's Government of XizangAutonomous Regionhave thoroughly implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on the development of the digital economy, vigorously promoted the digital industrialization, and paved a prosperous path for high-quality development.

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the added value of Xizang's digital economy has maintained an average annual growth rate of about 10%, with an average annual investment in informatization of around 5 billion yuan (RMB). In the first three quarters of 2025, the added value of Xizang's digital economy reached 14 billion yuan (RMB), and it is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan (RMB) for the whole year. The high-tech digital industry has become a new driving force for the high-quality economic development of Xizang.

Improving communication networks and deploying computing power supply

In the past, due to the natural barriers of high mountains and large canyons, Xizang suffered from insufficient network coverage, high latency and low speed, which not only restricted people's daily lives, but also became a major obstacle to industrial development.

To address the problem, Xizang has launched a network infrastructure campaign, taking the construction of "Broadband Borderland" as the key focus. Up to now, a total of 26,200 5G base stations have been built, 93.7% of administrative villages have access to 5G networks in Xizang, and the number of 5G base stations per 10,000 people ranks among the top in China.

In border areas, this communication transformation is even more significant. All 21 border counties have full access to 5G and 10-gigabit optical networks, and all border administrative villages have broadband and 4G network coverage. The life that people had to shout to pass messages has become history.

If 5G networks are the "nerve endings" supporting digital development, then intelligent computing centers are the "super brains" driving the take-off of the plateau. The "Yalong River No.1" Intelligent Computing Center (Phase I), with an investment of 920 million yuan(RMB), started construction in 2025, with a designed computing power of 2,000 petaflops (P). As a key node for Xizang to integrate into the national "Eastern Data and Western Computing" layout, it adopts green and energy-saving technologies, with an annual PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of less than 1.1 during operation.

It is estimated that after the full commissioning of the 2,000P computing power of the "Yalong River No.1" Intelligent Computing Center (Phase I), it can undertake about 4 million hours of AI training tasks from eastern regions every year. This is equivalent to saving 320 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 280,000 tons for the east.

Over the years, Xizang has actively integrated into the national "Eastern Data and Western Computing" layout, developed the digital economy, and promoted the in-depth integration of new-generation information technologies such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence with economic and social development to transform resource advantages into tangible real wealth.

Improving data resource utilization and empowering precision governance

In the past, the government affairs in Xizang were scattered and isolated and the grassroots governance mostly relied on "experience-based judgment", resulting that people had to go to different departments to handle affairs with low efficiency and accuracy.

How to make data flow more and people run less, and shift governance from "experience-driven" to "data-driven"?

In recent years, Xizang has taken institutional construction as the forerunner. Policy documents such as the "Xizang Autonomous Region Interim Measures for the Administration of Public Data" and the "Xizang Autonomous Region Implementation Plan for the Development and Utilization of Public Data Resources" were successively issued. The "Zangshuju" component of the Xizang big data platform to  share mechanism of "collected by one party and applied by multiple parties" also launched. These are all solid institutional foundation for data governance.

In addition, taking LhasaCityas a pilot, Xizang has promoted the authorized operation of public data and built a regional integrated government affairs big data system featuring "1 + 7 + N". A total of 529 non-classified government affairs information systems from 137 regional and central government departments have been migrated to the cloud. It has collected a total of 3.428 billion pieces of data, released 6,760 data resource catalogs, achieved 316,300 government data sharing and calling times, and developed 275 data products.

The implementation of the "one-stop online service" has upgraded government services from "inter-departmental coordination" to "data-linked coordination", effectively reducing the burden on the public and enterprises in handling affairs.

Furthermore, relying on the massive data resources gathered by the regional big data platform, Xizang has created and realized a comprehensive overview of the "nine major industry maps" on large, medium and small screens. It can display key indicators of the overall economy in real time, facilitating industry analysis and decision-making.

Driving digital transformation and expanding industrial clusters

Xizang once faced problems such as a single industrial structure, short industrial chains and low technological content. The application and empowerment of digital technology have become a "key measure" to solve this dilemma.

This year, Xizang has made high-level plans for the development of the digital industry. It has launched the preparation of the 15th Five-Year Plan for the construction of digital Xizang and the development of the digital economy, issued the "Xizang Autonomous Region Implementation Plan for Promoting the High-quality Development of the Digital Economy (2025-2030)", and formulated and released the "Xizang Autonomous Region Research Report on the Demonstration of Computing Power Industry Layout". It has scientifically optimized the layout of the computing power industry, strengthened the cultivation of digital economy enterprises to grow into large-scale ones, and continuously enhanced the supporting capacity of local digital economy enterprises. At present, Xizang has 62 large-scale digital economy enterprises in total, which have achieved a revenue of 11.437 billion yuan(RMB) from January to October. 169 national-level high-tech enterprises and 22 national-level innovation bases have been cultivated.

In Xizang Woye Industrial Co., Ltd., located in Gongbo'gyamgda County, Nyingchi City, Che Xiaohuan, the person in charge of the production workshop, stared at the large screen of the smart breeding system. The temperature and humidity curves fluctuated steadily, and infrared sensors transmitted the feeding tracks of Tibetan pigs in real time. "In the past, it was difficult for 5 people to take care of 2,000 pigs. Now 3 people can easily look after 3,000 pigs!" With a simple click of the mouse, he could clearly see the stock, health status and breeding progress of Tibetan pigs in the county. The smart platform has not only solved the problems of shortage of manpower and expanding breeding scale, but also injected new vitality into Xizang's economic growth.

The dividends of digital technology have not only benefited the characteristic breeding industry, but also permeated the service sector. Ms. Li, a tourist from Sichuan, took her child to experience the panoramic roaming in the Snow Town Exhibition Area of the Potala Palace. She said, "digital technology has broken the barriers of time, space and region, allowing children to intuitively feel the profoundness of Tibetan culture. The immersive experience is more vivid than the explanations in textbooks."

A representative in charge of Xizang Autonomous Region Department of Economy and Information Technology said, "we will make scientific plans for the implementation path of the 15th Five-Year Plan for the construction of digital Xizang and the development of the digital economy, vigorously promote the in-depth integration of the real economy and the digital economy, and strive to build the high-tech digital industry into a 'new engine' for the high-quality development of the plateau economy."

Reporter: Droma Qilin, Kangye Palmo

Translator: Zheng Yujie, Zhi Xinghua

Review: Hu Rongguo