Strength lies in unity, while isolation leads to weakness. The platform economy, by breaking down closed ecosystems and promoting collaborative development between large, medium, and small enterprises, is poised to unleash new growth drivers.
Recently, seven departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released the "Action Plan for Promoting Collaborative Development of Large, Medium, and Small Enterprises in the Platform Economy (2026-2028)." The goal is to foster an open, shared, and mutually beneficial platform ecosystem that enhances the creativity and competitiveness of the platform economy.
The platform economy is a new economic form centered on internet platforms, fostering a symbiotic environment for businesses of all sizes. China's platform enterprises are large in scale and dynamic in their business models, playing a crucial role in stabilizing economic growth, leading technological innovation, and boosting employment and income.
On one end, platforms aggregate the technological, data, and computing power advantages of large corporations. On the other, they host the scenario innovation and market vitality of numerous small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By establishing collaborative mechanisms to build an industrial ecosystem with shared risks and benefits, this approach can address the challenge large firms face in finding sufficient application scenarios for their technologies while also compensating for the lack of R&D resources at SMEs. This mutual empowerment releases endogenous development momentum.
The symbiotic and prosperous nature of platform ecosystems is a practical requirement for the transformation and upgrading of the real economy. Currently, the digitalization of traditional industries is entering a deep-water zone. Many SMEs lack funds, technology, talent, and channels, making it difficult for them to complete intelligent upgrades independently.
Leveraging their ability to integrate resources across domains, China's platform enterprises are helping SMEs reduce costs and increase efficiency. Amid the wave of artificial intelligence, competition among platform companies has long shifted from single-domain contests to comprehensive, all-round rivalry.
The collaborative and symbiotic development of large, medium, and small enterprises within the platform economy will connect supply and demand, optimize resource allocation, form a synergistic force for innovation, empower the real economy, and cultivate new quality productive forces.
However, deep-seated contradictions, such as imbalances in the platform ecosystem and inadequate collaboration, are becoming increasingly prominent, constraining the full release of synergistic efficiency. For instance, in innovation, there is a misallocation of resources. Some leading enterprises hold cutting-edge technologies but do not share or open them, while many SMEs have innovative ideas but lack R&D support.
At the ecosystem level, issues include unequal market positions, lack of algorithm transparency, imbalanced traffic distribution, and unreasonable commission rates. At the factor level, data and computing power exist in silos, and there is insufficient interconnectivity between platforms, making it difficult to form a new pattern of collaborative development for businesses of all sizes within the platform economy.
The primary lever for collaborative development is innovation synergy. For the platform economy to achieve symbiotic win-win outcomes for all enterprise sizes, it must break the pattern of closed-off and fragmented technological elements. Innovation synergy requires promoting leading platforms to open their technological capabilities and share digital resources, empowering SME R&D.
This allows for the bidirectional integration of scenario advantages and technological strengths, revitalizing innovation factors across the entire industrial chain, addressing the shortfall of misallocated innovation resources, and enhancing the overall innovative vitality of the industry. It involves cultivating diverse innovation entities, improving public services for matching technology supply and demand, and driving the penetration of innovation services in consumption, production, and technology sectors to create an innovation ecosystem where "the leading goose guides the flock."
The key support for collaborative development is ecological synergy. The healthy operation of the platform economy relies on the integrated symbiosis of all participants. Advancing ecological synergy requires balancing the interests and distribution mechanisms of all parties, clarifying the rights, responsibilities, and relationships between platforms, merchants, and practitioners.
It involves building cooperative models of shared risk and revenue, continuously narrowing development gaps, and forming an industrial pattern of complementary advantages and mutual benefit. Simultaneously, it means helping SMEs enhance product quality and build distinctive brands, encouraging businesses of all sizes to go global together and explore international markets, thereby opening up new, vast blue oceans for the platform economy.
An important pathway for collaborative development is open synergy. This includes breaking down internal ecosystem barriers within platforms to promote the free flow of core elements like data, technology, and computing power. It also involves leveraging the vast domestic market to clear blockages in supply and demand, achieving efficient connectivity of upstream and downstream resources.
Internally, openness empowers the growth of micro, small, and medium enterprises and revitalizes various innovation resources. Externally, relying on the advantages of industrial chain clusters to go global together facilitates active integration into the global industrial division of labor system. Through this two-way opening—both inward and outward—the circulation of factors and markets is enhanced, continuously expanding the boundaries of platform economy development.
Win-win cooperation in the platform economy is an inevitable trend of industrial evolution in the era of artificial intelligence. By using openness to break down barriers and collaboration to replace internal competition, with large enterprises leading and small ones supporting, the platform economy will become an "accelerator" for the real economy's leap forward and a "main force" in cultivating new quality productive forces.
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