Realizing a Rural Sustainable Development through a Digital Village Construction: Experiences from China

The rapid application of digital technology in rural areas has been carried out worldwide, but academic research on the theme of digital villages is still in its infancy. The academia is still unclear about the construction content, theoretical framework and realization path of the digital village construction. Against this background, this paper studies how villages can transform into digital villages and achieve a sustainable development. Firstly, this paper builds a digital village technology architecture system from four levels: infrastructure system, village brain, application support system and application service system. The system points out the specific construction content from the technical point of view, and provides scientific guidance for construction activities. Secondly, with the help of digital empowerment theory, the theoretical framework of the digital village construction to promote a sustainable rural development, is constructed from five fields: industry, ecology, culture, service and governance. Finally, the theoretical framework is verified through five Chinese cases, and two characteristics of a digital village construction are summarized to provide reference and guidance for digital village practice activities. The digital village construction should use data, digital technology and digital platform as the base, attract multiple subjects to participate and form symbiotic relationships, and achieve a rural sustainable development.