Brief Analysis of Beijing's Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Cultivation of Digital Talents to Support Digital Economic Development (2024-2026)

According to Beijing's Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Cultivation of Digital Talents to Support Digital Economic Development (2024-2026), the city will rigorously advance the development of key talent teams, cultivation platforms, institutional mechanisms, and organizational safeguards in the digital sector. This aims to continuously enhance the independent innovation capabilities of digital talents, increase the effective supply of such professionals, and provide robust talent support for Beijing's goal of becoming a global benchmark city for the digital economy.

To strengthen the development of key talent in the digital sector, Beijing has focused on digital industrialization and industrial digitalization, targeting four categories of professionals with precision. By introducing overseas high-level talents and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship of returned overseas students, the city aims to cultivate compound scientist echelons with strategic vision to achieve breakthroughs in "bottleneck" technologies. It encourages institutions to establish Chief Data Officer (CDO) systems and foster interdisciplinary talents with both industrial expertise and digital capabilities through order-based training and cutting-edge technology research programs. The implementation of knowledge renewal initiatives for technical professionals includes hierarchical training in emerging fields like big data and artificial intelligence, linking technical qualifications with professional titles to enhance workforce specialization. Concurrently, Beijing is advancing the digital transformation of vocational colleges, prioritizing frontier disciplines such as industrial internet and blockchain, while refining curriculum systems and practical training resources to provide multi-level, interdisciplinary talent support for high-quality development of the digital economy.

To enhance the development of digital talent cultivation platforms, Beijing will prioritize building integrated industry-academia-research collaboration platforms, promoting partnerships between universities and enterprises to jointly establish "first-class programs" and interdisciplinary disciplines in digital fields, and leveraging national major projects to train multidisciplinary outstanding engineers. The city will improve digital technology talent bases by consolidating high-quality domestic and international resources, strengthening continuing education and technical exchanges for high-end professionals through international training bases and industry-education integrated practical training bases. Focusing on emerging industry demands, it will establish high-skilled talent training bases and master studios, while encouraging social entities to participate in digital skills training. Additionally, Beijing will deepen the development of human resources service industrial parks and entrepreneurship parks for overseas returnees, connecting innovation, industrial, and capital chains to provide comprehensive support for entrepreneurs in artificial intelligence, smart manufacturing, and other fields, thereby fully energizing the digital talent innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

To accelerate the establishment of a new digital talent development mechanism, Beijing will implement comprehensive policy innovations: Talent recruitment will focus on major projects and competition-driven strategies, attracting talents through initiatives like the Digital Engineers Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, with winners granted fast-track for professional title evaluation. The city will dynamically introduce digital professional titles in fields like big data and quantum information into the talent evaluation system, devolving review authority to industrial clusters and empowering enterprises to independently conduct skill-level certifications. Incentive mechanisms for talents will be enhanced by guiding companies to adopt market-oriented compensation systems, while public institutions may implement flexible salary models such as annual salaries or negotiated wages for eligible high-level professionals. It will also strengthen talent mobility through international collaboration and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional coordination, facilitate two-way engagement between enterprise talents and academic researchers, and streamline personnel file services, thereby removing barriers to cross-regional development of digital talents and fully unleashing talent innovation potential.

To strengthen the organizational guarantee system for digital talent, Beijing will establish a multi-tiered coordination mechanism, leveraging the Leading Group for the Technical Professionals Knowledge Renewal Project to coordinate policy implementation, convene regular thematic meetings to analyze evolving talent development needs, and integrate government, industry, academic, and research resources to refine policy research frameworks. Concurrently, a digital talent think tank will be built to pool industry experts for forward-looking research, dynamically monitoring supply-demand shifts in industrial talent and adjusting training strategies with precision. The city will elevate investment in digital talent development by encouraging enterprises to fully allocate and utilize employee education funds, continuously increasing financial commitments to digital skills training and talent cultivation. High-level digital professionals will be incorporated into the municipal high-level expert database, with districts and employers urged to enhance support in compensation, housing, and children's education. Public employment services will be provided for the spouses of digital talent with employment intentions.