Empowering the Development of New Quality Productive Forces with Smart Decision-Making

New quality productive forces are an advanced form of productive forces that break away from traditional development paths. Their cultivation, development, and strengthening call for a leap in national decision-making capacity. As a foundational capability oriented toward all-domain factors, national decision-making capacity determines whether leaders and managers can, in a complex and volatile environment, conduct in-depth analysis, scientific judgment, rational planning, and rapid response to various problems, and formulate optimal action plans. It plays a key role in grasping the overall situation, optimizing resource allocation, promoting scientific and technological innovation, and driving industrial transformation, and is an important foundation for the development of new quality productive forces. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to accelerate the construction of “intelligent, comprehensive digital information infrastructure.” The improvement of national decision-making capacity cannot be separated from the adaptation of infrastructure. Digitalized and intelligent national decision-making infrastructure is precisely an innovative public technology foundation for promoting the leap in national decision-making capacity and a powerful lever for developing new quality productive forces.

新质生产力是摆脱传统发展路径的先进生产力质态，其培育、发展和强化，呼唤着国家决策能力的跃迁。作为面向全域要素的基础性能力，国家决策能力决定了领导者和管理者能否在复杂多变的环境中，对各类问题进行深入分析、科学判断、合理运筹和迅速反应，并制定出最优行动方案的能力，对把握全局、优化资源配置、促进科技创新、推动产业变革具有关键作用，是新质生产力发展的重要基座。习近平总书记强调，要加快建设“智能化综合性数字信息基础设施”。国家决策能力的提升不可脱离基础设施的适配，数字化、智能化的国家决策基础设施正是推动国家决策能力跃迁的创新性公共技术底座，是新质生产力发展的有力抓手。

The development of new quality productive forces requires high-quality smart decision-making empowerment.

新质生产力发展需要高质量智慧决策赋能

Since 2023, the theoretical implications of new quality productive forces have been continuously clarified, their strategic importance has been steadily elevated, and the intellectualization, agility, and digitization of national decision-making capacity have become their natural connotations. During the eleventh collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the prominent features of new quality productive forces as “high technology, high efficiency, high quality.” High-quality smart decision-making is an important lever for fostering innovation momentum and promoting the coordinated leap of relations of production and productive forces. At present, the cultivation and development of new quality productive forces require both writing the “big essay” of overall, strategic high-quality decision-making leading development and creating the “multiplier” of digital-intelligent, agile decision-making driving disruptive innovation.

自2023年以来，新质生产力的理论意涵不断明晰，战略高度不断提升，国家决策能力的智能化、敏捷化、数字化成为其应有之义。习近平总书记在中共中央政治局第十一次集体学习时强调了新质生产力的“高科技、高效能、高质量”的突出特征，高质量智慧决策则是培育创新动能、推动生产关系与生产力协同跃迁的重要抓手。当前，新质生产力的培育和发展，既要写好全局性、战略性高质量决策引领发展的“大文章”，也要打造数智化、敏捷化决策驱动颠覆式创新的“倍增器”。

New quality productive forces are rooted in the optimized integration of production factors such as labor, knowledge, technology, management, capital, and data, and emerge from the virtuous cycle of education, science and technology, and talent. Their cultivation especially relies on high-quality decision-making. For the government, high-quality strategic decision-making is an inevitable link in effectively coordinating security and development. Against the backdrop of intensifying international competition and increasing global uncertainties, decision-makers need to base themselves on the Two Overall Situations[1]1 The “Two Overall Situations” (liangge daju) refer to the overall strategic situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the overall situation of changes unseen in a century in the world. and formulate policies that serve the long-term development interests of the country. For enterprises, high-quality economic decision-making is a prerequisite for improving total factor productivity. Decision-makers need to gain deep insight into new technologies, industries, business forms, and models, match advantageous tracks with capital investment, and accelerate the integration and creation of laborers, means of labor, and objects of labor. For universities and research institutions, achieving high-quality science and education decision-making is an important cornerstone for innovation-driven development. Against the backdrop of the accelerating new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, decision-makers need to center on the actual needs of national strategy and talent growth, innovate talent cultivation, optimize discipline settings, and forge a new force for high-quality development.

新质生产力根植于劳动、知识、技术、管理、资本和数据等生产要素的优化融合，萌生于教育、科技、人才的良性循环，其培育尤其需要以高质量决策为凭依。对政府而言，高质量战略决策是有效统筹安全与发展的必然环节，在国际竞争加剧、全球不确定性因素增加的背景下，决策者需要立足两个大局，制定符合国家长远发展利益的政策。对企业而言，高质量经济决策是提升全要素生产率的前置条件，决策者需要基于对新技术、新产业、新业态、新模式的深入洞察，匹配优势赛道与资本投入，加速劳动者、劳动资料、劳动对象的融合创造。对高校与研究机构而言，实现高质量科教决策是创新驱动发展的重要基石。在新一轮科技革命与产业变革加速演进的背景下，决策者需要围绕国家战略和人才成长的切实需求，创新人才培养，优化学科设置，铸造高质量发展的生力军。

The continuous improvement of new quality productive forces requires support from smart decision-making driven by hybrid intelligence, constructing a new model for resolving risks and addressing challenges. New quality productive forces are inherently transformative and disruptive, coupling with the new chapter of the digital economy, digital society, and digital governance. Their development momentum comes from achieving agile follow-up to real-world changes, penetrating assessment of complex problems, and precise analysis of high-frequency risks. Driven by real-world needs and the intelligent revolution, the traditional decision-making model that relies mainly on human intelligence to complete major tasks is gradually deeply integrating with artificial intelligence that uses various algorithmic models for situational awareness, predictive early warning, and countermeasure simulation. This smart decision-making model driven by hybrid intelligence can analyze high-dimensional big data in real time and achieve intelligent optimization through self-learning and human-computer interaction. By continuously improving the scientificity, accuracy, effectiveness, and adaptability of decision-making, the intelligent transformation of decision-making capacity will provide strong momentum for the development of new quality productive forces.

新质生产力的持续提升，需要以混合智能驱动的智慧决策为支撑，构建化解风险与应对挑战的全新模式。新质生产力天然具有变革性、颠覆性，与数字经济、数字社会、数字治理的时代新章相互耦合，其发展动力来源于实现对现实变化的敏捷跟进、对复杂问题的穿透评估以及对高频风险的精准分析。在现实需求和智能革命的不断推动下，传统依靠人类智能完成主要工作的决策模式，正逐渐与应用各类算法模型完成态势感知、预测预警和对策推演的人工智能深度融合。这种混合智能驱动的智慧决策模式，可以实时对动态高维大数据进行分析，并在自我学习和人机交互中实现智能优化。通过不断提高决策的科学性、精确性、有效性和适应性，决策能力的智慧化变革将为新质生产力发展提供强劲动能。

The level of construction of national decision-making infrastructure determines national decision-making capacity.

国家决策基础设施建设水平决定国家决策能力

Faced with the new coordinates of new quality productive forces, high-quality decision-making is the “key engine” that gathers multiple driving forces. High-quality decision-making aims at timely and comprehensive information collection, accurate and scientific application of theories, and agile and effective implementation of countermeasures. It encompasses systematic goal setting, all-domain information integration, forward-looking trend prediction, and practical countermeasure suggestions. To promote the leapfrog development of national decision-making capacity, it is inevitable to ground it in the reinforcement and construction of national decision-making infrastructure. The fundamental definition of national decision-making infrastructure is the key technical facilities and organizations that the state uses to collect information, design countermeasures, and evaluate options in strategic actions. It includes not only various knowledge databases, algorithm model libraries, and computing centers as technical entities, but also think tanks, universities, and other research institutions that provide intellectual support for national decision-making. The data, technical level, knowledge endowment, and system form of national decision-making infrastructure jointly determine the quality and efficiency of national decision-making.

面向新质生产力的全新坐标，高质量决策是汇聚多元动能的“关键引擎”。高质量决策以信息搜集及时全面、理论应用准确科学、对策实施敏捷有效为旨归，涵盖系统性目标设置、全域性信息整合、前瞻性趋势预测与实操性对策建议。推动国家决策能力的跨越式发展，必然要在国家决策基础设施建设加固中落地。国家决策基础设施的根本定义在于，国家在战略行为中用以搜集信息、设计对策、评估选择的关键技术设施和组织，既包括各类知识数据库、算法模型库与算力中心等技术实体，也包括智库、高校等为国家决策提供智力支持的研究机构。国家决策基础设施的数据、技术水平、知识禀赋和体系形态，共同决定着国家决策的质量与效率。

National decision-making infrastructure constitutes the “searchlight” of national decision-making. As the waves of networking, informatization, and digitization surge, the real world can be represented by data of various forms. “Data is the lifeline of decision-making.” As the resource foundation of national decision-making infrastructure, the abundance and completeness of databases directly determine the quality of national digital resources. Multi-source, heterogeneous, and simultaneous “big data” surpasses the limitations of “small data” and can provide real-time basis for decision-making in economy, society, science and technology, education, and other fields, thus externalizing into the state’s systematic ability to obtain and apply information, and effectively promoting the improvement of national decision-making capacity. To develop national decision-making infrastructure, improve the functional operation mode of data acquisition, mining, storage, and computation, and open up the decision-support pathway of “data-information-knowledge” are key measures to make the “front-view mirror” of national decision-making clearer.

国家决策基础设施构成了国家决策的“探照灯”。随着网络化、信息化、数字化浪潮迭起，现实世界均可被各种样态的数据所表征。“数据是决策的生命线”，数据库作为国家决策基础设施的资源底座，其丰裕度和完整性直接决定了国家数字资源的质量。多元异构共时的“大数据”超越了“小数据”的局限，能够为经济、社会、科技、教育等各类决策提供实时依据，从而外化为国家获取、应用信息的系统性能力，推动国家决策能力的有效提升。以国家决策基础设施建设发展，健全数据获取、挖掘、存储、计算的功能运作模式，打通“数据—信息—知识”的决策支持通路，是擦亮国家决策“前视镜”的关键举措。

National decision-making infrastructure constitutes the “engine” of national decision-making. In the digital era, where system effects have been unprecedentedly enhanced, even with massive information, if high-quality decisions cannot be made quickly, the relative competitive advantage will be lost. The agility and precision of decision-making depend on the efficient collaboration of expert intelligence and machine intelligence, that is, through the deep integration of technical and computing resources with intellectual and organizational resources, to achieve scientific planning of complex tasks, comprehensive collection of necessary data, precise answers to key questions, and efficient output of countermeasure plans. In the digital era, the algorithm model library is the key module for national decision-making infrastructure to achieve “picking up treasures from the sea of data”—from automated expert models that use chain-of-thought to pre-embed knowledge and rules, to deep learning models that “learn” patterns and regularities from massive historical data. This is the dual-wheel drive of theoretical research and model innovation, making the “engine” of national decision-making powerful and robust.

国家决策基础设施构成了国家决策的“发动机”。在系统效应空前提升的数字时代，即使拥有海量的信息，如果不能快速形成高质量决策，也将失去竞争的相对优势。决策的敏捷与精准，依赖于专家智能与机器智能的高效协作，即通过技术、算力资源与智力、组织资源的深度融合，实现对复杂任务的科学规划、必要数据的全面采集、关键问题的精准解答和对策方案的高效产出。在数字时代，算法模型库是国家决策基础设施实现“数海拾贝”的关键模块，从利用思维链来预嵌入知识与规则的自动化专家模型，到在海量历史数据中“学习”模式与规律的深度学习模型，是理论研究与模型创新的双轮驱动，让国家决策的“发动机”强劲有力。

Advancing the construction of national decision-making infrastructure promotes the leapfrog development of China’s decision-making capacity.

推进国家决策基础设施建设推动我国决策能力跨越式发展

Currently, the leapfrog development of national decision-making capacity is greeted by unprecedented opportunities of the era, and it is the right time to build national decision-making infrastructure. The 2024 Government Work Report emphasizes “moderately front-loaded construction of digital infrastructure.” The core of new quality productive forces lies in “innovation.” Intelligent and comprehensive national decision-making infrastructure is precisely the new driving force for the leapfrog development of national decision-making capacity.

当前，国家决策能力跨越式发展迎来了前所未有的时代机遇，构筑国家决策基础设施正当其时。2024年《政府工作报告》强调，“适度超前建设数字基础设施”。新质生产力的核心在于“创新”，智能化、综合性的国家决策基础设施，正是国家决策能力跨越式发展的全新驱动。

In terms of technical conditions, the “disruptive” development of national decision-making infrastructure is timely. Cutting-edge information technologies represented by artificial intelligence and big data are developing rapidly, machine learning algorithms have achieved breakthrough progress, and the “emergence” of large language models heralds the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Driven by the intelligent revolution, all-encompassing and all-domain data elements provide all-round, full-angle, and full-chain information support for national decision-making. The continuous superposition of computing materials and algorithms, together with the rise of emerging interdisciplinary fields such as computational social science, provides the basis for scientific, complex, and precise decision-making. The closed decision-making paradigm that mainly relied on expert knowledge and established rules is gone, and the smart decision-making paradigm based on “hybrid intelligence” and “simulation” is gradually becoming possible. Driven by large language models and multi-agent systems, the real-time collection and processing of high-dimensional big data, the computation and optimization of algorithmic models, the construction of chain-of-thought for expert decision analysis, and high-fidelity simulation of social behavior actors provide complete technical conditions for the realization of smart decision-making in various fields of national and social development. Strengthening the construction of national decision-making infrastructure will inevitably promote the intelligent transformation of national decision-making in the whole process, all fields, and the entire chain.

在技术条件上，国家决策基础设施的“颠覆式”发展恰逢其时。以人工智能、大数据为代表的前沿信息技术迅速发展，机器学习算法取得突破式进展，大语言模型的“横空出世”，昭示第四次工业革命已然来临。在智能革命推动下，全量全域的数据要素为国家决策提供了全方位、全角度、全链条的信息支持。算料、算法的持续叠加，协同计算社会科学等新兴交叉学科的兴起，为实现科学决策、复杂决策、精准决策提供了凭依。主要依赖专家知识与既定规则的封闭决策范式已经远去，基于“混合智能”与“模拟仿真”的智慧决策范式正逐渐成为可能。在大语言模型和多智能体的驱动下，高维大数据的实时采集与处理、算法模型的运算与优化、对专家决策分析的思维链构建以及对社会行为体的高保真模拟，为智慧决策在国家和社会发展各领域的实现提供了完备的技术条件。加强国家决策基础设施建设，势必也将推动国家决策实现全过程、全领域、全链条的智慧转型。

Overall, China has already laid a certain foundation for the large-scale construction and systematic operation of national decision-making infrastructure. Data and model management in government decision-making departments has been organized into systems. The capacity of national high-end think tanks to serve strategic and overall decision-making continues to improve. Various open and integrated scientific research platforms actively built by universities and research institutes also provide a scientific foundation for national decision-making infrastructure. With the coordinated advantages of multiple actors, national decision-making infrastructure can, for important issues in various fields of national and social development, accelerate the construction of overall, normalized, real-time data investigation and collection platforms for national conditions, gradually establish algorithm model platforms with clear decision variables and clear theoretical foundations, build intelligent application systems that classify and contain scenario problems and countermeasure cases, and take the lead in building a national decision-making infrastructure system that adapts to the development of new quality productive forces, helping national decision-making capacity achieve a leapfrog improvement.

总的来看，在国家决策基础设施的规模化建设与体系化运行上，我国已具备一定的基础。政府决策部门的数据、模型管理已成建制，国家高端智库对战略性、全局性问题的决策服务能力持续提升，高校与科研院所大力建设的各类开放集成科研平台，亦为国家决策基础设施提供了科学底座。在多方主体的优势协同下，国家决策基础设施可以针对国家和社会发展各领域的重要问题，加快建设全局性、常态化、实时性数据调研采集的国情信息平台，逐步建立决策变量明确、理论基础清晰的算法模型平台，分类构建包含场景问题和对策案例的智能应用系统，率先建成适应新质生产力发展的国家决策基础设施体系，助力国家决策能力实现跨越式提升。

(The authors are respectively: Vice President of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Director of the Laboratory of Digital Civilization and Smart Decision-Making; Researcher of the Laboratory of Digital Civilization and Smart Decision-Making, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; and Secretary-General of the Laboratory of Digital Civilization and Smart Decision-Making, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.)

（作者系中国社会科学院大学副校长、数字文明与智慧决策实验室主任；中国社会科学院大学数字文明与智慧决策实验室研究员；中国社会科学院大学数字文明与智慧决策实验室秘书长）

Online editor: Hui Hui

网络编辑：慧慧