South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region plans to build itself into a hub that facilitates data flow by expanding land and undersea cable networks, speeding up data transmission, and improving regulations on cross-border data entry, according to the information office of the regional government.

Guangxi already operates 12 cross-border land cables connecting Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and other ASEAN countries, with a combined international communication capacity of over 9,000 GB.

International students promote products via live-streaming at a cross-border e-commerce exhibition area during the 2025 China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week in Gui'an New Area, southwest China's Guizhou Province, July 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Tao Liang)

Guangxi is actively involved in the construction of a major international data corridor to ASEAN, anchored by the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. By the end of this year, an international communication gateway bureau in the regional capital Nanning is expected to go into service, allowing data to be transmitted directly from Nanning to ASEAN countries. This will greatly shorten transmission distances and cut communication costs.

For example, the transmission delay between Nanning and Hanoi, Vietnam, will drop from the current 107 milliseconds to 18 milliseconds, nearly a fivefold increase in speed. This will boost cross-border cooperation in e-commerce, livestreaming, finance, and other sectors between China and Vietnam

Many Chinese companies engaged in cross-border business with ASEAN counterparts are already routing their data overseas through the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone. Looking ahead, Guangxi plans to work with ASEAN countries to establish cross-border data flow pilot zones and international data centers to drive the growth of cross-border industries.