The software and information technology industry will be a new growth engine for the Chinese economy as the country upgrades into a globally competitive software nation, senior industry executives said on Wednesday.

"The software industry is gaining momentum in China and has become an important driving force for the country's industrial transformation and economic growth," said Li Guanyu, deputy director-general of the information and software service department at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

China is ramping up efforts to promote breakthroughs in key technologies, develop software technologies and nurture skilled workers, Li said.

He made the remarks during the second Global Programmers' Festival held in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, on Wednesday. The event links up programmers from across the world to push forward the country's software and information development.

Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure, said at the festival that China is one of the most active countries in the world in terms of embracing digital transformation, and its innovation-driven development strategy has achieved great results.

He said, according to an International Data Corp survey, products and services based on digital technologies, including cloud computing, mobile computing, the inter-net of things and artificial intelligence, will contribute to 65 percent of China's total GDP by 2021.

"Such a promising prospect has and will create huge and valuable opportunities for both companies and industries. The Chinese market will continue to be one of our important markets globally," he said.

Driven by stronger-than-expected demand from local companies, Microsoft Azure－the tech giant's cloud computing service－had already tripled its cloud capacity and added two more cloud regions earlier this year to serve its 110,000 clients in the country.

"In the future, we expect to help more Chinese companies to expand their overseas business and global companies to tap into China to help more customers to go global, go China," he said.

China's software and IT sector growth accelerated in the first eight months of this year, according to the MIIT. The ministry said the software industry hit 3.95 trillion yuan ($569 billion) in market scale, 14.8 percent higher year-on-year.