Abstract: The high-speed mobile Internet, coupled with smart phone application has rendered short video, one media form, captured by the platform economy as it becomes a short intermediary, linking the whole cultural industry and it is transformed into a digital platform, and constantly integrates into the digital economy, public services and national governance. Drawn from this, short video reveals the tendency towards a kind of infrastructure, which in particular is told by the three aspects as follows: building data center, expanding computing services and shaping political culture. Such a tendency bears obvious regional color, especially in terms of overall development and state intervention in China, and it is described as the success of technological nationalism. Short video, in its development, has its unsustainability-the market closure and external intervention crisis caused by channel hegemony, the increasing digital geopolitics, and the “addiction” economic crisis between computing power and energy caused by digital labor based on user binding, which altogether will determine how short video can find a sustainable and high-quality development path within the overall framework of Digital China.

Key words: short video, digital platform, infrastructure, political economy of communication