As autumn approaches, the crops on the Longdong Loess Plateau are gradually ripening. Beyond the fields, another kind of "harvest" is being produced at a rapid pace.
At the Huan County Digital Employment Base in Qingyang, Gansu Province, data annotator Zhao Yanrong scrolls her mouse and drags across a 3D point cloud map, pulling out a cubic framework. Her image annotations are converted into coordinate data transmitted to a server.
"Our parents' generation planted grain on the yellow earth; now we 'feed' data to machines and have become processors of 'digital grain'," Zhao says of her work. Qingyang, located on the Loess Plateau and hailed as the "Granary of Eastern Gansu", is a key part of the old revolutionary base area of Shaanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia. The region was once heavily reliant on its petroleum industry, with a single-industry structure that led to a scarcity of jobs and hampered local economic vitality.
The turning point came with the "East Data, West Computing" project. With the national computing hub node landing in Qingyang, the question became how to convert this computing power into employment. By proactively attracting data annotation enterprises and accelerating the cultivation of local teams, Qingyang has responded to the massive volumes of data generated by autonomous driving and smart city sectors in eastern China, upgrading from mere computing power output to high-end services that integrate data and computation. This has turned the data flow into a local "reservoir" of employment right at people's doorsteps.
Zhao Yanrong is one of the beneficiaries. She previously worked far from home, making it difficult to care for her family. By chance, she learned about recruitment at the digital employment base through the Qingyang Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau and decided to apply on a trial basis. During her training, she was first introduced to autonomous driving perception systems and how data annotation helps vehicles "see" complex road conditions.
"When I was a child, I helped adults measure corn spacing in the fields, where precision was everything. Now my hoe has been replaced by a mouse, but the pursuit of excellence remains unchanged," Zhao says with a sense of accomplishment. The data she annotates now serves various scenarios in more than a dozen cities, including Beijing and Shenzhen.
Where does the data come from? A significant source is the sky, generated by drones. At the drone pilot training base in Qingyang, trainee Guo Panpan stares at the remote control screen, making fine adjustments with her fingertips as a quadcopter ascends. The screen displays the ravine-crossed Loess Plateau. "One hill looks at another—close in sight but far in distance. Now, a single drone can give you a comprehensive view," she says. Guo was previously a sailor who worked at sea for eight years. Now, she has returned home and transitioned into a drone pilot. "There's a new job right at my doorstep, and the pay is decent."
"Focusing on the employment needs of the digital industry, we have included 51 occupations, such as data annotators and drone pilots, in the catalog of urgently needed and scarce professions. To date, we have provided subsidized training for over 16,000 person-times in the digital and low-altitude economies," says Zhou Jie, Deputy Director of the Qingyang Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau. "During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we will continue to cultivate mid-to-high-end technical positions in computing power operations and cloud-network architecture, providing more young people with employment opportunities."
An employment chain covering data collection, annotation, and application is now taking root on the Loess Plateau of Qingyang. In the digital age, the "Granary of Eastern Gansu" is writing a new chapter.