The internet era ushered in enormous momentum for China’s innovation, benefiting numerous enterprises and people, People’s Daily said in its recent report.

By virtue of innovation, China has seen unprecedented developments being made in its science and technology over the recent years. It had the most enterprises on the Fortune Global 500 list last year, outrunning the US.

Additionally, the Beijing-Shanghai quantum private communications line, and the quantum satellite called Mozi, marked a milestone for China in the sphere of intercontinental quantum private network this year.

According to the 40th China Statistical Report on Internet Development released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of Chinese netizens has reached 751 million, accounting for one-fifth of the global number; the penetration rate of the internet was 54.3 percent, 4.6 percentage points higher than the global average.

The remarkable internet popularity helped governments draw closer to its people and strengthen their administration and public services. For instance, a handful of WeChat official accounts can ensure that people stay tuned, with wide-ranging up-to-date information, rendering obsolete the previous difficulty in staying informed about the latest polices.

Needless to say, big data analysis can help predict people’s needs and accordingly facilitate social development by utilizing resources and improving social mobility. Cloud computing will rise to become China’s infrastructure, underpinning its development, said Li Shuchong, a senior director at Alibaba.

The internet is already ubiquitous, with its innate feature of innovation playing a significant role in economic and industrial development.

Internet-aided innovation has given rise to many new economic forms. The total economic output of China’s digital economy, the core driver for its growth, reached 2.26 billion yuan ($340.62 million) in 2016, according to analysis by the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology. Meanwhile, the sharing economy and other forms have continued to alter industrial development as well.

Aside from that, Internet Plus has helped pave the way for the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries. As presented in a survey conducted by Accenture, almost all surveyed Chinese enterprises were evaluating or actively employing the internet of things (loT) to improve their production, which not only offers a new platform but also promotes the reform of their internal production techniques.

Facing increasingly fierce competition in technology and economy, China’s all-around catching-up calls for technological innovation to prop it up, said Hu Angang, dean of the National Conditions Institute at Tsinghua University.