Recently, the China Software Industry Association compiled and released the "Report on the High Quality Development of China's Software Industry (2024)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"). The report points out that China's software industry has gone through more than 40 years of accumulation and development, and has become a powerful driving force for promoting the improvement of production efficiency in the whole society and an important infrastructure for the development of the digital economy. Software defined everything "has become a consensus in the industry. Currently, China's software industry has entered a fast lane of development, maintaining a steady growth trend and continuously expanding in scale. From 2013 to 2023, the overall revenue of China's software and information technology services industry increased from 3.06 trillion yuan to 12.32 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 16%. In 2023, there will be over 38000 large-scale enterprises in the software and information technology service industry nationwide, with a cumulative software business revenue of 12325.8 billion yuan and a total software industry profit of 1459.1 billion yuan. The revenue of the software industry accounts for 9.8% of China's GDP, and its pillar position in the national economy is increasingly evident. Since 2023, the rapid rise of global large-scale models marks a new stage for artificial intelligence technology. China's development pace in the field of artificial intelligence large-scale models is constantly accelerating, and the landing process of industrial applications is also accelerating. From the perspective of the development of the software industry, the introduction of large models injects new vitality and innovation momentum into the industry. In terms of industry empowerment, innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and big models will deeply expand the application scenarios of cutting-edge industries such as AR/VR, metaverse, intelligent robots, and Model as a Service (MaaS), promoting traditional industries to move towards intelligence and digitization. In addition, the open source ecosystem is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and innovation vitality continues to increase. The demand for open source software in China is strong, and the market size continues to expand. The performance of domestic basic software, application software and other products has significantly improved, gradually gaining recognition in the domestic mid to high end market. The activity of domestic open source communities continues to increase, with a significant increase in the number of developers and contributors, and a continuous deepening of enterprise participation. The report points out that China's software industry has entered a high-speed development cycle from quantitative change to qualitative change. In the next 5-10 years, China's software industry will show broad market prospects and enormous development potential, and the scale of the software industry is expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate of 12% to 15%. The China Software Association predicts that by 2025, the scale of China's software industry is expected to exceed the 15 trillion yuan mark, and it is expected that by 2028, this number is expected to exceed the 20 trillion yuan mark. The report believes that the development of China's software industry is facing many new opportunities and challenges, and the digital transformation market has enormous potential for development. In the next 3-5 years, China's digital transformation will generate a market demand of 5 trillion to 10 trillion yuan, which will bring huge business opportunities to China's software enterprises. The widespread application of large models will further promote the software industry to a higher level, making the software development process more intelligent and convenient, effectively reducing development barriers, improving development efficiency, and injecting new vitality into the innovation and development of the software industry. Open source has become the dominant paradigm for software technology and industry innovation. In the future, with the continuous evolution of open source culture and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, the open source model will play a more important role in software technology and industry innovation. Regarding the factors that affect the development of China's software industry, the report points out that firstly, software root technology has become the high ground of technological competition. Software root technology is the foundation for building high-quality software systems and is crucial for enhancing the overall level and competitiveness of the software industry. Secondly, technological innovation has become a new engine for value growth. Technological innovation is crucial for software companies. Only by building a strong technological reserve through innovation can software companies promote their comprehensive, sustainable, and healthy development. Thirdly, high-end talents have become the driving force for enterprise development. It is expected that by 2025, the shortage of high-quality software talents in China will exceed one million. Fourthly, the digital economy has become a multiplier for industrial development, and the software industry, as an important support for digital transformation, is increasingly integrated with other industries. This not only expands the application areas of the software industry, but also enhances its position in the entire economic system. The fifth is that the policy environment safeguards high-quality development, and a stable policy environment provides comprehensive and multi-level guarantees and support for the development of the software industry. At the same time, the report also points out that the road to software productization is still long and arduous. The project-based approach still dominates the domestic software market, but the transformation towards standardization and productization is gradually becoming an industry consensus. The value of software has not been recognized and reflected in the market. When developing and promoting software products, software companies usually bundle software with hardware for sale, rather than selling software as a standalone product. Domestic software urgently needs to strengthen intellectual property protection. The form and function of software products are constantly evolving, and the application of new technologies makes infringement more covert and difficult to trace, making software intellectual property protection even more difficult. (New Society)