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Digital Silk Road CHINA’S vague but much-vaunted Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been providing buzzword fodder for government leaders and official sloganeers since 2013, when the country launched the scheme to extend its political and economic influence abroad by investing in infrastructure and other big projects. The “belt” refers to an overland push across Eurasia and the “road” to a maritime route to South Asia and beyond. But in recent months some new rhetoric (consistent in its challenging use of metaphor) has been promoting a virtual dimension: a “digital Silk Road”. Xi Jinping, China’s president, has revealed few details, beyond that it will encompass quantum computing, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, big data and cloud storage. In April he said it would involve helping other countries to build digital infrastructure and develop internet security. The digital Silk Road will help to create “a community of common destiny in cyberspace”, suggests Chen Zhaoxiong, a vice-minister of information technology. Whatever that means, the western city of Xi’an is eager to cash in. The city was once China’s imperial capital (its army of terracotta warriors lures millions of tourists). It was also a hub on the ancient Eurasian Silk Road, which China cites as its inspiration for the BRI. That connection has encouraged Xi’an’s government to claim a role for the city in the building of a digital road. Its officials speak of it as a potential rival of Silicon Valley or Bangalore. Compared with Guiyang in the south, another inland city with such aspirations (see article) but a shortage of skilled people, Xi’an has a lot going for it. The city of 8m is home to 63 colleges and universities, as well as hundreds of research institutes. They produce 300,000 graduates each year, most of them scientists. Xi’an has a long history, stretching back to the Mao era, of supplying technicians needed by defence indus