At three in the morning, the data center of an e-commerce platform in Hangzhou is still brightly lit. What flickers on the screens are not ordinary numbers, but over 500,000 user behavior traces per second—a moment lingering on a page, a swipe to compare prices, a late-night addition to the cart—all transformed into a deluge of 0s and 1s, flowing into a vast 'data lake.' This is not a scene from science fiction but the daily reality for enterprises in China's digital economy wave as they confront the era of big data.

"Five years ago, we were still debating whether data was an asset. Now the question is how to prevent this 'gold mine' from turning into a 'data swamp,'" Li Ming, the CTO of a leading domestic retail enterprise, admitted to our reporter. His team recently completed a risky 'data migration'—integrating user data scattered across 87 systems into a unified platform, a process that at one point faced the risk of system collapse. Behind this tough battle lies a common dilemma for Chinese enterprises: while data volume grows by over 60% annually, less than 20% is truly transformed into commercial value.

The turning point occurred last spring. A regional fresh food supermarket, by analyzing cold chain logistics data and community group purchase orders, unexpectedly discovered a strong correlation between 'lychees and premium yogurt.' After adjusting shelf layouts, monthly sales for this product combination skyrocketed by 300%. This seemingly accidental case is now triggering an industry earthquake. "In the past, we relied on experience; now every decision must be supported by data," pointed out Professor Wang from Tsinghua University's Data Science Research Institute. "Big data is shifting from a 'technical concept' to a 'survival necessity.'"

However, the path to extracting gold is fraught with thorns. Our reporter's investigation found that over 70% of enterprises remain trapped in 'data silos'—financial systems, supply chain systems, and customer management systems operate independently, forming isolated information black holes. More critically, there is the red line of privacy protection. Since 2023, the number of enterprises penalized for data compliance issues has increased by 45% year-on-year, with a well-known social platform once fined tens of millions for excessive collection of user trajectories.

"We are undergoing a critical transition from 'having lots of data' to 'big data intelligence,'" said Zhang Tao, a senior expert at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, at a recent industry summit. He presented a transformation case of a manufacturing enterprise: by installing thousands of sensors on production lines to collect over 200 parameters such as temperature, vibration, and energy consumption in real-time, and then combining them with AI algorithms to predict equipment failures, unexpected downtime was reduced by 70%. This model of 'data-driven manufacturing' is being rapidly replicated in factories across the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions.

Notably, the battlefield for extracting data value is expanding from internet giants to traditional industries. In Baoding, Hebei, a century-old traditional Chinese medicine enterprise has established a full-lifecycle database for medicinal materials, achieving digital monitoring of everything from the pH level of the planting soil to humidity fluctuations in the storage environment. "Every gram of Panax notoginseng can be traced back to a specific hillside at an altitude of 1,800 meters," the enterprise head demonstrated with a traceability system, breathing new life into an ancient industry.

This transformation is also reshaping urban governance. Shanghai's 'Integrated Management Network' platform has connected 1.5 billion IoT terminals across sectors like transportation, energy, and security. During last summer's typhoon season, by analyzing historical waterlogging data and real-time rainfall, the system issued warnings for 128 flood-prone points three hours in advance, improving emergency response efficiency by 40%. "The city is becoming a computable, schedulable organism," described an engineer involved in the platform's development.

As our reporter concluded the visit, that Hangzhou data center was迎接ing another data deluge—pre-sale data for the '618' shopping festival was pouring in at terabyte-per-second speeds. The screen's blue glow reflected on the engineer's face as he softly remarked, "You see, these aren't just numbers; they are the pulse of a billion lives." And behind that pulse, a grand game concerning efficiency, privacy, and innovation has only just begun.