China urged to invest more on cyber security

China should invest more in cyber security for data safety, governance compliance, and new technologies like AI and blockchain, according to International Data Corp.

At the IDC CSO conference in Shanghai, the research firm said that China's data security product and service market, which includes privacy-preserving computation and blockchain security, was US$1.24 billion in 2021.

China creates and uses roughly a quarter of the world's data, while its data security investment accounts for one-fifth of the global level. It means "insufficient investment," which leads to a variety of Internet threats and data security issues, according to Kitty Fok, the managing director of IDC China.

More investments are required as organizations meet governance compliance for related laws as well as advanced and broad data use.

China has strengthened data and personal information protection by passing several laws, including the Personal Information Protection Law, which was passed in November. It has restricted organizations from collecting unnecessary data and authorization from users.

Credit: Ti Gong

In November, a data exchange debt was issued in Shanghai, with many "firsts" for the data trade ecosystem, smart transaction system, and digital certificate. It is intended to boost the city's digital hub construction while protecting the privacy and ensuring strictly regulated data security.

Shanghai, as a city with massive amounts of financial and industrial data, supports the development of the Internet and data security industries, according to Qiu Wei, head of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization's software and information service division.

Qiu said that Shanghai's cyber security industry output will account for more than 10 percent of the national level by 2023.

IDC published IDC TechScape in Shanghai, a tech road map on cyber security that was released for the first time in China. It covers both traditional data security technologies like data leakage prevention and data encryption, as well as new concepts like privacy-preserving computation, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and "zero trust" issues.