By: Protocol
July 20, 2021
Amid China’s multipronged efforts to command and secure its wealth of data, as well as hacking allegations being flung between the country and an alliance of Western nations and bodies including the U.S., the EU, Japan and NATO, Chinese regulators have announced plans to grow the country’s cybersecurity industry as much as fourfold within less than three years.
The draft plan, published July 12 by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, aims to grow the industry to 250 billion yuan ($38.7 billion) by 2023, citing growing demand from emerging technologies including 5G, IoT, the industrial internet, smart vehicles and cities, cloud and AI, as well as sectors including manufacturing, natural resources, health care, consumer products, finance, transportation, education and more.
Strengthening China’s cybersecurity industry would support the country’s 2017 Cyber Security Law and last month’s Data Security Law, as well as the 14th Five-Year Plan released in March, an economic blueprint that dedicated an entire section on digitizing the nation and making everything from factories to cities “smart.”