China Embraces Big-Data

What is the issue?

• Mobiwik recently published a report that extensively used Big-data analytic tools.
• China seems to be racing ahead in the Big-data business.

How does the Big-data landscape look in China?

• China is already capitalising big data for solutions in areas like policing, education, urban planning & traffic management.
• Chinese government feels that the full potential of big data remains unrealised due to low-level sharing of resources.
• Hence, it is even working on establishing industry standards that will facilitate seamless sharing.  
• Their aim is to triple the scale of China’s big data industry by 2020 to foster new economic growth.

What was the Mobiwik report?

• Mobike is one of the largest share-cycle service providers in China.
• It recently released a white paper on its service, which studied the impact biking on the economy, urban transport, environment and living standards. 
• The report had done an extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of Mobike’s vast trove of travel data.
• It provided remarkably detailed insights on the behavioural patterns of various social groups broken down to clear specifics.

How does the future look?

• Big-data can bring in revolutionary changes in decision making.  
• While concerns about privacy & data abuse are indeed real, completely shunning big-data can’t be the solution.
• We therefore need to develop robust structures to facilitate data sharing between entities without compromising on privacy.
• All stakeholders - the industry, academia, policy makers and the wider public could immensely benefit from big-data.

Source: Indian Express