Big data is often known as next-generation technology, but attempts made by large Chinese Internet firms have shown that the technology is not that far from today's everyday life.

Shenzhen-based Tencent Holdings Ltd, one of China's largest Internet companies, is working on a system to rate people's creditworthiness using their social networking relationships. Through big data technology, your social networking friends, along with the "likes" you get from them, are evaluated and quantified and become an influential asset for your credit score.

Meng Zhaoli, chief economist with Tencent Institute for Internet and Society, a think tank that studies the Internet's influence on laws, policies and economies, is a firm believer that Chinese companies will become a major force driving the world's big data wave.