The United States: coping with the Big Data era with national strategy

Justin Gulima, an assistant professor at Stanford University in California, is trying to apply mathematics to the study of politics, using computers to make statistical analysis of massive blogs, speeches and news reports on the Internet, thus developing trend judgments. In the eyes of the 29-year-old young political scholar, "politics has become increasingly a data-intensive discipline." In fact, to become a "data-intensive discipline" is far more than political science, science, advertising, sports, public health and many other disciplines and fields are benefiting from large data technology.

With the increasing of the data on the Internet, the vast network data in the sea has become a strategic resource. The goal of large data technology is to excavate information from these data, judge the trend and improve the benefit. In the technologically advanced United States, some large internet companies first noticed the infinite glamour of large data technology and tried to use it in business activities. The social networking site "Facebook" and the video site "Fly" through the collection, collation of users left on the network "footprint", analysis of user preferences, interests and needs, to users to recommend contact information or interested in video content.

The successful application of large data technology will change the face of daily life, business decision-making and national governance, and bring amazing economic and social benefits. Rick Smolland, a famous American photographer and writer, believes that big data will become a human dashboard, an intelligent tool to help people cope with poverty, crime and pollution. Guery Kim, director of the Institute of Quantitative Sociology at Harvard University, described the changes in academic, business and government management brought about by Big data technology "in a revolution", saying that "Big data technologies will touch any one area".

In 2011, the U.S. President's Advisory Council on Science and Technology put forward policy recommendations, pointing out that large data technology contains important strategic significance, the federal government should increase investment research and development efforts. In response to the proposal, the White House's Office of Science and Technology policy released the Big Data research and development plan last March 29, and set up a "Big Data senior Steering Group" to co-ordinate the government's more than $200 million trillion investment in large data areas. The move marks the opportunity and challenge that the United States has brought to the big data technology revolution, to the national strategic level, and to the overall mobilization pattern.

The large data research and development plan suggests that the vast and complex digital data should be collected and collated to gain insights to enhance the predictive power of socio-economic development. According to the plan, the United States hopes to use large data technology to achieve breakthroughs in a number of areas, including research and teaching, environmental protection, engineering, Homeland Security, biomedicine, and other specific research and development programs involving the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Ministry of Energy, the Department of Defense Advanced Research, 6 federal departments and agencies, such as the Geological Prospecting Bureau.

In the American government's actual operation, the big data technology has already entered the application stage. Last month, Gess Hant, the CIA's chief technology officer, revealed the role of large data technology in tracking terrorists and monitoring social sentiment at a seminar in San Francisco. Like Coca-Cola and consumer companies that use data analysis to master consumer habits, the CIA is also using large data technology to find traces of terrorists, says Hunter. In addition, he cites the Arab Spring as an example of how many people and who are becoming more aggressive from moderate positions and "working out" who might be doing something harmful to someone.

A report by the McKinsey Global Institute says the United States needs 1.5 million data-savvy managers and 140,000 to 190,000 experts on in-depth data analysis. At present, American universities specialize in the study of large data technology courses to foster the next generation of "data scientists", and some American companies are also providing research grants to universities and sponsoring competitions related to big data. Now the United States is holding on to big data, the latest instrument in the field of human technology, in order to continue to maintain its technological leadership.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)