Shaping the Future: Digital China’s Journey from Digitalization to an AI-Embedded Organization

The case traces Digital China’s transformation from a traditional IT distributor into a data-driven, AI-embedded organization. It examines the company’s multi-year digital journey, emphasizing the pivotal roles of top-down leadership, bottom-up business initiatives, and organizational and talent readiness. A key enabler of this transformation is Digital China’s middle platform and its data intelligence strategy, which together support scalable, agile, and intelligent operations. In the AI era, the case highlights major initiatives such as the Smart Vision platform and explores the company’s strategic efforts in developing “Specialized Generalist AI” and deploying “AI for Process”. It also showcases Digital China’s emerging role as an AI enabler for its clients. Ultimately, the case illustrates that becoming an AI-driven organization requires more than technology — it demands strategic alignment, organizational redesign, and deep capability building. Digital China’s experience provides a roadmap for companies seeking to transition from digitalization to AI-embedded organizations.

(1) Digital transformation; (2) AI adoption and transformation; (3) Technology and innovation; (4) Competitive strategy and competitive analyses; (5) Industry value chain; (6) Organizational culture and innovation leadership; (7) Value creation and value capture in the AI industry; (8) China strategy.