Gui'an new area: A roughly 40-minute drive from Guiyang to the Gui'an New Area reveals a concentration of technology companies and digital infrastructure that may feel somewhat familiar to a Malaysian visitor, as it bears some resemblance to Cyberjaya.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, the visit was part of a media programme organised by Chinese news portal People's Daily Online in conjunction with the China International Big Data Industry Expo 2026, bringing journalists to Gui'an to observe Guizhou's developing digital and artificial intelligence (AI) industries.
Across three companies visited by journalists, Gui'an demonstrated how Guizhou is developing an integrated AI value chain - from preparing training data and converting information into commercial assets to providing computing power and access to foundation models. The companies are also looking beyond China, with one believing its data-to-AI model could be replicated in Malaysia and another preparing to make its computing services available internationally.
At the upstream end of the chain, Guizhou Duanmu Youcaitong Big Data Co Ltd prepares and annotates the large quantities of data required to train AI systems. Its services cover autonomous driving, embodied AI, intelligent manufacturing, and multilingual audio and video applications.
The company's general manager, Zhao Shungang, said Duanmu Youcaitong has handled Southeast Asia-related data-annotation work for major Chinese technology companies with overseas platforms. However, Zhao said expanding data-annotation operations internationally was not as straightforward as transferring the company's existing model into another country. 'One of the core issues is data security and data ownership. For internationalisation, this remains a barrier because data policies do not currently allow everything to be interconnected across borders,' he explained.
This means any expansion into markets such as Malaysia would have to consider local data rules, ownership requirements and where the information is processed.
Duanmu Youcaitong also works with universities to train students and develop a pipeline of workers for the AI data industry. Zhao named Guizhou Normal University, Guizhou University, Guizhou University of Commerce and Guizhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine among its education partners.
'In the months before students graduate, during their internship period, we introduce actual order-based tasks into the universities for training,' he said. 'We may also bring them to our company for internships. If they perform well, they may remain here to work.'
If annotated information is the raw material for AI, Guizhou ChinaDataPay Network Technology Co Ltd represents the next stage - transforming data into assets and commercially usable products.
Founded in Gui'an in 2016, ChinaDataPay provides services covering data governance, confirmation of data rights, assetisation and compliant data circulation.
Nie Biao, rotating general manager of ChinaDataPay's Local Data Business Division, said the company's model, encompassing the transformation of data into assets and subsequently into AI applications, could be taken beyond China and adapted for use in Malaysia.
Completing the value chain is Guizhou Suanjia Computing Services Co Ltd, which provides the computing power and model access required to develop and operate AI applications. Jointly incubated by the Gui'an Supercomputing Centre and Guizhou University, the company specialises in distributed computing-power scheduling.
The company said it has connected 11 computing centres across eight Chinese provinces and integrated more than 10,000 AI accelerator cards into its network. Its infrastructure serves SMEs, individual developers, universities and researchers, with the company recording nearly 60,000 individual users.
The company is now preparing to extend its services internationally. 'We are developing international versions of our two products, Suanjia Cloud and the Suanqiao API platform,' said Yang Jiawei, general manager of Guizhou Suanjia Computing Services Co Ltd. 'They are expected to be launched by the end of September and will be available to international users.'
For Malaysia, Guizhou's experience offers more than a view of China's technological development. It presents potential areas of collaboration, spanning multilingual AI training data, data-asset management and affordable computing services for companies, universities and research institutions.
Despite the drive to advance AI and commercialise data, signs of tradition remain. At Guizhou Duanmu Youcaitong, Zhao personally prepared and served tea, refilling each visitor's cup throughout the interview in a gesture of hospitality and respect, underscoring the blend of innovation and tradition in Guizhou's approach.