Nigeria Times

By Gu Yekai, Yu Sinan, People’s Daily

China’s technological capabilities are increasingly evident in the critical field of database software. During the peak of the 2026 Spring Festival travel season, China’s railway ticketing platform 12306 handled over 1 million queries per second, sold over 1,000 tickets per second at peak times, and recorded more than 80 billion daily visits, making it the world’s largest real-time ticketing system.

Amid such massive traffic surges — with hundreds of millions of users vying for tickets within seconds — China’s homegrown databases have played a pivotal role. They not only provided essential support but also served as the foundation engine ensuring the system’s stable, efficient, and secure operation. 

In recent years, China has ramped up investment in core database technologies. A growing number of Chinese database solutions have broken the long-standing dominance of international players, empowering digital transformation across a wide range of industries.

Databases are critical to national economy and people’s livelihoods, and represent a core technology in the software sector. 

Data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology show that China’s database market is now valued at nearly 60 billion yuan ($8.71 billion), with 164 database products available. Globally, one in every four database companies is based in China. 

Demonstrating strong capabilities in stability, storage, and computing power, these domestic databases highlight China’s advancements in foundational software and contribute to higher-quality development.

The drive for self-reliance has deep roots. In the late 1970s, Feng Yucai, founder and chairman of Wuhan Dameng Database Co., Ltd. (Dameng), visited Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation for technical training. At the time, the plant had imported a costly automated management system from abroad. After installation, foreign engineers destroyed three truckloads of technical documentation on-site.

Deeply affected by the incident, Feng resolved to develop China’s own database system. After eight years of research, he created China’s first domestically designed database management system prototype using the Pascal programming language.

As a fully self-developed native distributed database, OceanBase maintains full control over its source code. Since its launch, it has avoided reliance on external technologies and instead focused on achieving independent control over core technologies by writing its kernel code from scratch. In October 2019, OceanBase ranked first in a leading international database benchmark, ending nine years of leadership by foreign companies.

Beyond native distributed databases, China has also outperformed global peers in cloud-native database. In January 2025, Alibaba Cloud’s PolarDB claimed the top position in the TPC-C benchmark, widely regarded as the “Olympics” of the database performance. The test simulates 1.6 billion current users conducting transactions. During the evaluation, PolarDB completed 2.2 trillion data operations with a fluctuation rate of just 0.16 percent, ensuring 100 percent data accuracy. It also set new world records for performance, processing 2.055 billion transactions per minute, and cost efficiency, at 0.8 yuan per unit.

According to Wang Yuan, head of database product technology architecture at Alibaba Cloud, it is precisely the real-world stress tests of massive events like China’s Double 11 shopping festival that have enabled domestic databases to achieve world-class capabilities, driving continuous improvements toward extreme performance and greater simplicity and usability.

Moving from the lab to the market, domestic databases must overcome not only technical challenges but also barriers of market trust. Years ago, foreign database products accounted for over 80 percent of the Chinese market, nearly monopolizing core systems in key sectors such as finance, telecommunications, and energy. For these industries, foreign databases were almost the default choice.

“Even a one-second delay can lead to serious consequences,” said Yang Chuanhui, CTO of OceanBase. “This is especially true in the financial sector, where requirements are extremely stringent. 

To prove their reliability, OceanBase tackled challenges head-on. Its teams often worked on-site, earning trust through technical excellence. Over more than a decade, OceanBase has not only supported all core accounting systems of Chinese payment services platform Alipay, but also achieved stable operation across more than 300 financial institutions, serving over 4,000 clients.

Dameng spent more than a decade developing shared-storage cluster technology for databases, enabling it to move from peripheral systems into the core of high-end markets. Previously, only one foreign company possessed this technology. Driven by market demand, Dameng achieved a breakthrough.

“Good software is shaped through use. Databases, in particular, require continuous refinement in real-world applications to evolve and meet market needs,” Feng said.

Today, domestic databases have become standard infrastructure in key sectors. As their capabilities continue to grow, they are also gaining global traction. From ride-hailing platforms in Southeast Asia and smart city projects in the Middle East to emerging e-commerce in Africa and digital banks in Latin America, Chinese database solutions are offering new options for global digital applications. 

“At present, Alibaba Cloud’s database services cover 29 regions and 92 availability zones worldwide,” said Li Feifei, senior vice president of Alibaba Cloud.

By Xu Yuyao, People’s Daily

On the outskirts of Lhasa, capital of southwest China’s Xizang Autonomous Region, a giant Tibetan-style complex stands nestled among the mountains. It is a data center operated by local computing company Ningsuan, with a total capacity of 140,000 server racks.

Inside the server halls, a notable feature is the absence of noisy air-conditioning systems..  Despite this, the environment remains cool. What enables this efficient cooling?

“Data centers are major heat generators, and at many facilities a large portion of energy is consumed by cooling systems,” explained Tao Changjun, vice president of Ningsuan. “Here on the Tibetan Plateau, we harness the region’s exceptionally dry air to naturally reduce temperatures and minimize energy consumption.”

Compared to other high-altitude regions such as Yunnan and Guizhou, the air here is even drier; compared to other arid regions, the average temperature is lower. This combination creates ideal conditions for natural cooling.

A key indicator is the wet-bulb temperature, the lowest temperature possible using evaporative cooling. In Lhasa, summer wet-bulb temperatures are significantly lower than in most parts of the world.

“In simple terms, making use of ‘dry air energy’ means maximizing cooling through evaporation, using temperature differences to create pressure differences, and ultimately achieving natural ventilation,” Tao said. Based on this principle, the company designed a system that allows fresh air to circulate through the data center to quickly carry heat away.

Overall, this approach expands how widely natural cooling can be applied in data centers and delivers significant energy savings. It not only ensures stable operations but also reduces total energy consumption by around 30 percent.

While the concept is straightforward, implementation was complex. Data centers require highly stable temperatures, necessitating precise control over evaporation rates, internal temperature gradients, and airflow to mitigate instability from weather fluctuations.

To address this, Ningsuan worked with Xi’an Polytechnic University in northwest China’s Shaanxi province to develop a heat-matching algorithm. By fine-tuning airflow patterns and water evaporation cycles, the system maximizes thermal efficiency and keeps temperatures stable year-round.

Building the cooling equipment also brought challenges. Tao recalled that the first-generation units were designed and manufactured in other provinces before being transported to Lhasa. Initially, they operated normally, but soon began to report frequent errors.

Analysis revealed the issue: while the equipment was adapted for high-altitude conditions like low air pressure and specific thermal properties, certain unique environmental factors, such as intense ultraviolet radiation accelerating material aging, had been overlooked — posing a significant challenge for systems requiring precise control.

Engineers then launched a new round of technical upgrades. By improving operating modes and using advanced composite materials including synthetic fiber-based high-molecular fillers, they significantly enhanced the stability and safety of the equipment in plateau conditions.

Beyond economic efficiency, developing data centers in high-altitude regions demands careful ecological consideration.

To answer these concerns, the center uses heat recovery. Next to the data center sits a large greenhouse that remains warm throughout the year, heated entirely by recycled waste heat. Inside, warm-water fish can be farmed, and crops can be grown.

“Driven by technological innovation, Xizang’s resource advantages can be effectively transformed into economic strengths,” said Jiang Ning, president of Ningsuan. “In the future, data centers here may even generate revenue through carbon credit trading and heat recovery sales.”

By Xia Kangjian, People’s Daily

As night falls, a deep-blue “eye” gazes into the distance. Located in the western part of the Rongdong district of Xiong’an New Area, north China’s Hebei province, the Xiong’an Urban Computing Center rests quietly. Resembling a human eye in its architectural design, it is locally known as the “Eye of Xiong’an.” 

Inside this “city brain,” servers glow with streams of blue light, supporting multidimensional computing for government services, urban planning, and ecological management. Large screens display a continuously evolving virtual city model on a digital operations platform.

“The Xiong’an Urban Computing Center adopts an integrated computing system that includes edge computing, cloud computing, supercomputing, and intelligent computing, providing computing, storage, and network services for big data, blockchain, and the Internet of Things across the city,” said Zhao Song, an engineer at the center.

When asked what practical benefits the center brings, Zhao replied, “There are quite a lot,” citing the Xiong’an Pass project as an example. Its systems are deployed at the Xiong’an Urban Computing Center, allowing residents to use a third-generation social security card — known as the Xiong’an Pass — to access services in government affairs, social security, healthcare, transportation, and daily consumption. To date, more than 810,000 such cards have been issued, with over 6 million uses recorded. 

“The computing center provides strong support for our operations,” said Zhang Xu, project manager of the Xiong’an Pass at China Xiong’an Group Digital City Company. 

During a government-led consumption promotion campaign, the mini-program of Xiong’an Pass experienced up to 40,000 concurrent connections at the moment vouchers were released, placing high demands on bandwidth and cloud resource responsiveness, Zhang noted.

With 50 petabytes of current storage capacity and a planned expansion to 1,000 petabytes, the facility prioritizes sustainability. Its design includes over 10,000 square meters of ultra-low energy consumption building space, setting national benchmarks for green infrastructure. Critically, all technologies — from chips and servers to cloud platforms and applications — are domestically developed.

All government service systems in Xiong’an New Area are hosted at the computing center. Enterprises such as China Satellite Network Group Co., Ltd., China Space-Time Information Co., Ltd., and China Xiong’an Group, along with research institutions including the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Xiong’an Institute of Meteorological Artificial Intelligence, have also deployed their operations here. To date, the center has aggregated over 38 billion data entries and handled more than 400 million shared interface calls

As a “city of the future” entrusted with a mission of lasting national significance, Xiong’an integrates intelligence and innovation into its development, with the digital city and the physical city evolving in tandem.

In Xiong’an, even traffic lights can “think.” During morning rush hour in the Rongdong district, traffic signals adjust in real time based on traffic flow — an example of the city’s artificial intelligence-powered system and a vivid illustration of its digital twin model.

Underground utility tunnels also reflect this digital intelligence. “Through digital twin technology, sensor devices, and building information modeling, we monitor and provide early warnings for potential issues in water, electricity, gas, heating, and communication systems,” Zhao explained. In Xiong’an, every building, road, and pipeline has its own “digital ID.” “The digital city enables more precise and efficient urban governance,” Zhao added.

Xiong’an New Area has established a smart city standards system based on building information modeling and city information modeling platforms. It has built an independently innovative urban computing system featuring coordinated edge-cloud supercomputing integration, while achieving full coverage of IPv6, the HarmonyOS ecosystem, and sensing systems. Smart applications from government services and environmental protection to transportation and energy, are being rapidly implemented across the city.

By Sun Longfei, Li Anqi, People’s Daily

From above, the Central Green Valley in the start-up zone of Xiong’an New Area stretches across 500 hectares like a green artery, linking clusters of buildings into a cohesive whole.

“Five years ago, this was largely undeveloped land. Today, it is lush and green as far as the eye can see,” said Wu Fangfang, deputy general manager of Ecological Construction Company under China Xiong’an Group.

Stretching roughly 7 kilometers from north to south — connecting the northern forest belt to Baiyangdian Lake — and spanning roughly 3.2 kilometers east to west, the Central Green Valley forms the core ecological framework of the start-up zone. 

Its design features one corridor connecting functional zones, two valleys creating a harmonious blend of dense and open spaces that integrate the city with its waterways, three scenic lakes, and 18 distinctively designed parks catering to diverse recreational needs. 

Green development is the defining ecological feature of Xiong’an New Area. Since its establishment, the area has adhered to the principle of prioritizing ecological conservation and pursuing green development. Initiatives such as the “millennium forest project” and the environmental restoration of Baiyangdian Lake have laid the groundwork for an ecological foundation in which blue-green spaces will account for 70 percent of the total area.

The Daqing River forest area marked the starting point of the “millennium forest project”. Nearly nine years after the first sapling was planted, green space has steadily spread across the region, forming a dense ecological barrier — like an unfolding emerald necklace. 

Using a near-natural afforestation model that conbines mixed species, multi-layered structures, and trees of different ages, Xiong’an has completed afforestation on 32,200 hectares. The total forest area has reached 49,533 hectares, with forest coverage rising from 11 percent before the area’s establishment to 35.1 percent today.

Biodiversity metrics confirm ecological success: bird species have increased by 90 to 296 since 2025, including first-recorded Eastern Crowned Warblers and stable populations of globally endangered Baer’s Pochards. As environmental indicators, these species validate ecosystem recovery.

Balancing production, living, and ecological spaces to enhance urban livability is a key objective of China’s urban development. Livability means more than just adequate housing; it requires accessible, high-quality natural environments.

In Xiong’an New Area, residents enjoy green views from their windows and can reach a park within minutes of their homes. Covering 160 hectares, Yuerong Park embodies traditional Chinese aesthetics, unfolding along the south-north central axis of Xiong’an like a long, unfolding landscape painting.

“A well-designed park should feel integrated into the city and easily accessible,” said Zhang Liwei, chief engineer of Xiong’an Planning Institute, adding that “greening first, then building the city” is a guiding principle. From the outset, the ecological blueprint prioritized blue-green spaces. The locations of parks were determined first, with roads and land-use planned around them. At Central Green Valley Park, the boundaries blur seamlessly with urban roads, allowing free movement between spaces.

More than 20 urban parks have been planned and built across the start-up area and other key zones like the fifth cluster of the initial development area, Rongdong, Rongxi, Zangang, and Xiongdong, covering approximately 4,400 hectares in total. Xiong’an is demonstrating a new paradigm for urban development, placing nature at its core.

According to Zhang, residents can reach a woodland within three kilometers, a forest belt within one kilometer, and a community park within 300 meters — with recreational green spaces woven throughout the city.

Meanwhile, parks are being upgraded with increasingly versatile facilities, enriched cultural offerings, and people-centered design in every detail.

By continuously expanding and connecting blue and green spaces, nurturing harmony between people and nature, and integrating the new city closely with Baiyangdian Lake, the planners and builders of Xiong’an New Area are laying a vivid, green foundation for a modern city with ecological vision.

By Li Xiaoqing, People’s Daily

China is the world’s largest producer of eggs, consistently leading globally in both output and industry scale. Eggs are a staple nutritional source on Chinese tables.

The journey from henhouse to table requires significant effort to ensure safe, high-quality eggs. A recent People’s Daily investigation provides insights.

“Eggs are a primary agricultural product, and the most fundamental requirement is safety,” said Zhang Junmin, director of the Institute of Animal Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and chief scientist of the national chicken layer industry technology system. Put simply, healthy hens lay good eggs, Zhang added.

So how is the health of hens ensured?

At 7 a.m., at a breeding base operated by Sundaily Farm Ecological Food Co., Ltd. in Zitong, Mianyang, southwest China’s Sichuan province, farm managers put on protective clothing and undergo full-body disinfection before entering the henhouses to start their day.

Inside, fresh air systems run steadily, and automated equipment promptly processes chicken manure into organic fertilizer. The temperature is maintained at 22 to 26 degrees Celsius, humidity at 60 to 70 percent, and ammonia levels below 10 ppm. 

“A comfortable environment is vital for hen health and egg nutritional quality,” said Qi Sharina, the company’s director of product development.

Qi emphasized strict controls over feed varieties, sourcing, freshness, and mycotoxin levels, alongside balanced diets. Drinking water meets potable standards and is monitored throughout. “Targeted vaccination and antibiotic-reduction strategies also eliminate drug residues at the source,” she added.

Ensuring egg cleanliness and safety is another critical step.

Qi pointed to a fully automated production line where eggs moved orderly on conveyors. Robotic arms handled them with precision and care.

“Here, eggs go through multiple processes, including spraying, cleaning, air-drying, and ultraviolet sterilization, which effectively eliminate bacteria such as E. coli and salmonella on the shell surface,” she explained.

Digital technology makes every egg traceable. Picking up an egg marked with a traceability code, Qi explained that the code allows consumers to track the entire process from chick breeding to storage and transport. The company’s digital platform integrates farm management and production traceability, creating a closed-loop, data-driven system linking research and production.

In the mid-1990s, imported laying hens once accounted for more than 80 percent of China’s market. Wu Guiqin, deputy general manager of Beijing-based Yukou Poultry, recalled that an imported hen could lay more than 300 eggs annually, while a domestic one produced just over 100, a significant gap.

To address this, Chinese scientists began systematically collecting genetic resources in the 1990s, laying a solid foundation for future breeding efforts.

At a national core breeding farm in Beijing’s Pinggu district, technicians used smart devices to collect data on each hen, including egg production and egg weight. Eggs were then tested for shell strength, Haugh units, and other quality indicators. All data were fed into a performance database, forming the basis for selective breeding.

In 2009, a breakthrough arrived with two high-performance domestic breeds: “Jinghong No.1” and “Jingfen No.1.” Each capable of producing over 330 eggs annually, these breeds successfully broke the foreign dominance. After more than a decade of further research, Yukou Poultry established a fully commercialized independent breeding system. 

“Today, domestic breeds account for over 60 percent of the market,” Wu said. “Our breeding stock is also exported to countries such as Tanzania and Laos.”

Beyond safety, nutrition, and breeding independence, China is also strengthening the entire industrial chain. At an egg products R&D center of egg producer Hanovo in Dalian, northeast China’s Liaoning province, technicians are testing the foaming properties of newly developed enzymatically hydrolyzed egg protein powder. 

“We focus on applications such as baking, improving solubility and foaming performance so that egg-based ingredients better meet industrial needs,” said Wang Hongrong, the company’s general manager.

“Currently, deep processing accounts for only about 8 percent of China’s egg industry, leaving significant room for growth compared with developed countries,” Wang noted. As China’s catering industry becomes more industrialized and the baking sector expands, demand for standardized, high-quality egg ingredients continues to rise.

“Advanced processing is key to increasing added value,” said Han Jianchu, general manager of Hanovo’s parent company Hanwei Group. By processing fresh eggs at scale into products such as liquid eggs, egg powder, and soft-boiled eggs, the company is transforming primary agricultural products into standardized industrial ingredients and convenient foods. Its products are now exported to more than 10 countries and regions.

By Wu Yuehui, Wang Jiayao, Xi Jiayue

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and drones are rapidly reshaping the employment landscape. 

In China, new professions ranging from drone route planners and robot product managers to agricultural solutions engineers are continuously emerging. These Shifts in technological paradigms are creating fresh employment opportunities and opening up new possibilities.

On the rooftop of a logistics hub in Bao’an district, Shenzhen, Guangdong province, drones loaded with goods take off in succession, navigating between high-rise buildings along preset routes.

Ensuring their safe and orderly flight is Xue Haoran, a 24-year-old drone route planner at Chinese logistics giant SF Express. Despite just two years in the field, he is already a core team member, traversing the city daily with surveying equipment to map terrain and chart flight paths.

Drones represent one of the fastest-growing segments within China’s burgeoning low-altitude economy (airspace below 1,000 meters). As drone deployment scales up and applications diversify, demand for specialized roles like Xue’s continues to rise.

“Our role is to design safe and efficient routes for drone operators,” Xue explained. “We inspect takeoff and landing sites, assess environmental risks, and use mapping tools to plan paths between points, avoiding densely populated areas and hazards.”

Meanwhile, in robotics, embodied intelligence is advancing humanoid robots towards greater autonomy and enhanced human-machine collaboration, bringing them closer to real-world deployment. In Shenzhen, Wang Hongyang works as a robot product manager at Elephant Robotics, a Chinese tech firm specializing in robotic arms, kits, and parts.

“Our core task is to turn complex embodied intelligence technologies into tools that ordinary users can easily operate, combine, and innovate with,” Wang said.

To ensure a product’s successful development, Wang and his colleagues coordinate every stage of the process — from structural design and electronic engineering to front-end interface design — making sure that each step, from blueprint to mass production, meets expectations.

Qu Hongtao works as a humanoid robot data collection specialist at Beijing-based Zhongke Huiling Robot Technology.

Unlike earlier AI systems mainly processed text and images, humanoid robots operate in the physical world, which requires understanding complex physical rules, changes in light and shadow, and human movements. This, in turn, demands vast amounts of high-quality real-world data. Qu’s job is to “translate” the real world into data that machines can understand.

Speaking of how to translate abstract algorithm requirements into concrete data tasks, Qu said, “We think from the machine’s perspective. If the algorithm needs ‘stable walking,’ we have to consider what kind of surfaces to walk on, how long the stride should be, and how to shift the center of gravity. Turning these abstract terms into executable physical actions is fascinating creative work.” 

Cheng Zhongyi, 41, is a senior agricultural solutions engineer at DJI, a Chinese manufacturer of commercial unmanned aerial vehicles. Unlike traditional agricultural technicians, whose work relies heavily on experience and manual labor on fixed plots of land, Cheng’s role revolves around data and systems. His goal is to enable drones, acting as intelligent terminals, to perform agricultural tasks with enhanced precision and automation.

“This job gives me a strong sense of achievement, as I can see how technology is transforming a traditional industry,” Cheng said. “By analyzing large volumes of operational data and identifying common needs across different crops and regions, we design standardized intelligent solutions.” 

“Last year alone, I traveled 57,000 kilometers across the country, looking for more agricultural processes that drones can improve,” he added.

Today, professionals in these emerging fields can be found across China. Last year, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security officially recognized 17 new professions and 42 new job categories — the highest number ever added at one time. 

Looking ahead, as industries such as commercial spaceflight, low-altitude economy, and deep-sea technology continue to grow, and as future sectors like bio-manufacturing, quantum technology, embodied intelligence, and 6G develop, the range of new careers will keep expanding.

Wang is optimistic about the future. “The robotics industry is on the verge of rapid growth. New AI models and sensor technologies are emerging every day,” he said. “This field is full of uncertainty and challenges — but that’s exactly what makes it so exciting.”