Editing by Kate Yuan

Sichuan province in southwestern China announced plans to develop a "Storage Valley" of more memory technology companies in the 2021-2025 period to serve both Chinese and global markets, Sichuan Daily reported.

Source: Sichuan Provincial Economic and Information Department

A Sichuan Provincial Economic and Information Department senior representative said, "We will strive to develop Sichuan's storage industry for a scale of industry value exceeding RMB500 billion ($77.25 billion) by 2025." The remark was made at the "China Storage Valley Ecosystem Cooperation Summit" held in early September in Chengdu, Sichuan's capital city.  

Sichuan’s Storage Industry Development Plan for the 14th Five-Year Plan Period (2021-2025) taps into the province’s strong R&D resources accumulated in past decades in storage strength. It takes advantage of its well-known livable environment. It aims to form an entire industry chain of core storage software and hardware company clusters, cooperating with industry heavyweights like Huawei.

In 2020, Sichuan's digital economy scale reached RMB1.6 trillion ($247.52 billion) and will march towards RMB2.0 trillion ($309.40 billion) by 2022. The digital economy is the important force of innovation-driven development, and storage is the key business of the digital economy.

According to the plan, the Storage Valley will be built in three stages. In 2021, the province will promote some world-class storage enterprises as models, attracting more relevant projects to land in Sichuan.

In 2023, the province will build up a complete storage industrial chain, with the upstream, midstream, and downstream industries to settle in. By upgrading the local storage enterprises, more latest data technologies such as AI, and big data will be adopted. 　　

In 2025, the province’s storage industry will achieve the ability to lead industry standards with global influence.

Before announcing the ambitious plan, the Sichuan Provincial Economic and Information Department and related departments conducted extensive market research and consultation for better positioning and priorities.