China already boasts the second-largest world economy, and its trajectory indicates it will surpass the United States for first place by 2030. Recently, the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reported that the total revenues of China’s software industry have grown by nearly 11% in the first four months of 2022. The previous year, software revenues reached $42 billion USD for a 17.7% year-over-year increase — its highest growth rate in seven years. The rapid growth has largely been driven by industrial software, cloud services, big data, integrated circuit design, e-commerce, and information security offerings.
China’s 14th Five-Year Plan has seen the country make significant investments in developing operating systems, digital infrastructures, AI, and data centers. The initiative isn’t just about economic dominance, but also self-sufficiency — which could ultimately affect American software leaders such as Microsoft and Oracle. The country’s State Intellectual Property Office has also reported that 2.3 billion software copyright applications were filed in 2021 alone, while entry-level software engineers rake in more income than graduates from other majors. Once China has weaned itself off foreign software, it will likely try to expand its dominance to other countries, as well.
