According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China's software and information technology services industry (hereinafter referred to as the "software industry") is operating well. In the first three quarters of this year, the software business revenue was 9828.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%; The total profit was 1162.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%; The export of software business reached 41.03 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%. Experts say that since the beginning of this year, software business revenue has steadily increased, total profit growth has rebounded, and exports have continued to improve. The software industry is accelerating technological innovation and industry application, becoming an important force in cultivating new quality productivity. The market space continues to expand in the first three quarters, with software business revenue achieving double-digit growth year-on-year. Regarding this, Han Jian, director of the Institute of Information Technology and Software Industry at CCID Think Tank, analyzed that from the perspective of market demand, with the continuous release of policy dividends such as equipment updates, the software market space continues to expand, and effective demand is consolidated. From the supply side of enterprises, software companies are increasingly focusing on technology research and development and brand building, leading to a continuous increase in market competitiveness and recognition; At the same time, enterprises place greater emphasis on shaping their international competitiveness and actively increase their efforts to expand into international markets through collaborative efforts such as going global, achieving certain results. Wei Daisen, Vice President of Inspur Group and General Manager of Inspur Software, believes that under the guidance of national strategic plans such as "digital transformation" and "artificial intelligence+" and related policies, software companies continue to deepen the innovative application and achievement transformation of new technologies and products in the industry, and create high-quality software products. At the same time, with the increasing market demand in fields such as intelligent manufacturing and financial technology, as well as the digital needs of overseas enterprises, software companies are continuously enhancing their competitiveness by strengthening upstream and downstream cooperation in the industrial chain, actively expanding domestic and international markets. From the perspective of income composition, software products and information technology services account for a relatively large proportion of revenue. In the first three quarters, information technology service revenue was 6616.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.9%, accounting for 67.3% of the industry's total revenue. Among them, the revenue growth rate of basic software products, integrated circuit design, cloud computing, big data services and other businesses is relatively high. Zhao Gang, the director of the Saizhi Industry Research Institute, analyzed that the reason is that the government and major industry clients are accelerating innovation in information technology applications, promoting the upgrading of basic software products such as operating systems and databases, and further increasing the market share of domestic basic software. The increasing demand for domestic chips in terminal products such as new energy vehicles and smartphones has driven the growth of integrated circuit design business scale. The surge in demand for training large artificial intelligence models has driven revenue growth in businesses such as cloud computing and big data services. The technological progress in the field of artificial intelligence not only drives the growth of related business income for enterprises, but also drives the rapid development of industries such as chip design. In the first three quarters, the revenue from integrated circuit design increased by 13.1% year-on-year, making it the fastest-growing segment. With intelligence and cloudification becoming the definite trends in the software industry, it is expected that China's information technology service revenue will continue to grow steadily, and the proportion of revenue in the entire industry will further increase Han Jian said. On the evening of October 22nd, Huawei released a new native HarmonyOS operating system, which is the first operating system in China to achieve full stack self-developed. It represents a major breakthrough in the field of operating systems in China and will drive the upgrading and innovation of related industries. Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, Chairman of Terminal BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, introduced at the press conference that over 15000 HarmonyOS native applications and meta services have been launched, over 1 billion HarmonyOS ecosystem devices have been installed, over 110 million lines of HarmonyOS operating system code have been added, and the number of registered developers has reached 6.75 million. The operating system is the representative of basic software and the key infrastructure of the digital economy. Its development level is related to national security and industrial security. The Decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposes to urgently build an independent and controllable industrial chain and supply chain, improve and strengthen the development system and mechanism of key industrial chains such as integrated circuits, industrial mother machines, medical equipment, instruments and meters, basic software, industrial software, advanced materials, etc., and promote technological breakthroughs and application of achievements throughout the entire chain. Since the beginning of this year, key areas such as basic software and industrial software have accelerated breakthroughs, resulting in a number of landmark achievements, and some emerging fields have reached the international advanced level. Since 2023, breakthrough progress has been made in artificial intelligence big model technology, driving the iterative upgrading of basic software and accelerating product innovation in distributed computing, vector databases, AI operation monitoring, network and data security and other basic software for big model applications. Basic software continues to be deeply applied in government departments, finance, telecommunications, energy and other industries, with basic software product revenue of 137.7 billion yuan in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%, "said Zhao Gang. In the first three quarters, the revenue of industrial software products was 210.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.8%. With the continuous optimization of industrial structure and the challenge of "bottlenecks", China has increased its independent innovation efforts in the fields of intelligent product research and development design, computer-aided engineering, and intelligent manufacturing. Breakthroughs have been made in mid to high end industrial software products, providing strong support for the digital and intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry. The market share of domestic industrial software continues to increase, and due to favorable factors such as equipment renewal policies in the industrial field, the market share of domestic industrial software is steadily increasing. The efficiency of industrial software applications is also constantly improving. Han Jian introduced that as of the third quarter of this year, the penetration rate of digital R&D design tools and the CNC rate of key processes in key manufacturing enterprises have reached 82% and 64.6%, respectively. A number of high-level software solutions have been launched for typical application scenarios in key areas, effectively promoting digital transformation and increasing empowerment. Artificial intelligence accelerates innovation in the software industry, accelerating technological innovation and industry applications, and is becoming an important force in cultivating new quality productivity. With the development of general and industry wide modeling technologies, the software industry is accelerating its intelligent transformation. As of the end of July 2024, the number of recorded generative artificial intelligence services in China has reached 197, and software companies generally use artificial intelligence big models to enhance their abilities in code generation, video production, digital human services, and more. 360 Group founder Zhou Hongyi believes that in the past, the development of big models mainly cultivated quick thinking ability, which means being able to ask and answer questions quickly, but not possessing complex logical reasoning ability. The o1 model recently released by the American artificial intelligence research company OpenAI introduces the thought chain technology, which enables the large model to have the slow thinking ability similar to human beings through reinforcement learning. Prior to this, 360 Group had already launched an expert collaboration method that adopted a slow thinking architecture. By combining multiple large models to form a "staff team," the strengths of different models were leveraged to achieve the ability to solve complex problems. Software is the key carrier of digital technology. Wei Daisen analyzed that digital productivity is an important component of new quality productivity. Empowered by digital technologies such as big models, the new generation of software achieves wider connectivity, stronger intelligence, and higher agility, promoting the leap of digital value, further accelerating the release of digital productivity, and helping enterprises move towards full process digital enterprises, fully connected collaborative enterprises, and fully intelligent future enterprises. Software provides fundamental support for technological innovation. Han Jian analyzed that on the one hand, software itself is a universal technology for technological innovation. The key core of the new generation of information technology, such as the Internet, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and digital twins, is software. On the other hand, software has driven the development and breakthroughs in numerous technological fields. Significant original technological breakthroughs in gene sequencing, stem cell research and development, successful launches of scientific experimental satellites such as Wukong and Mozi, as well as strategic high-tech innovations such as manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, deep earth exploration, and domestic aircraft carriers, all rely on software innovation and drive. Although the software industry is facing many problems such as economic uncertainty, reduced user procurement budgets, and expanding losses for some enterprises, overall, the software industry is still one of the industries with active technological innovation, sufficient growth momentum, and stable market size. The growth rate of the software industry is expected to slow down for the whole year, but it will still maintain a growth rate of over 10%. Sub sectors such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, integrated circuit design, and live streaming e-commerce will maintain high growth rates Zhao Gang said. Han Jian believes that emerging software technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence will continue to drive changes in software technology, models, and ecosystems, continuously generate new growth points for businesses, and drive continuous revenue growth. In addition, with the implementation of major national strategies and security capacity building projects in key areas, the demand for software products and services in key industries is expected to be released, and it is expected that software business revenue and profits will maintain double-digit stable growth in 2024. (New Society)