Shanghai expands scope of virtual asset trading to become a ‘data industry innovation highland’ worth US$69 billion by 2025
- Some 5,000 data products are expected to be listed on the Shanghai Data Exchange by 2025
- These products are focused on major industries that include finance, logistics, technology and manufacturing
That expansion is expected to increase the value of Shanghai’s data industry to about 500 billion yuan (US$69 billion) by 2025, according to the municipal government.
The city’s master plan aims to build a “data industry innovation highland”, with the goal to attract or foster 1,000 companies, create 1,000 branded data products and establish 20 “national-level industry benchmarks” by 2025.
China is trying to apply commercial rules to create a market for data, which is regarded by Beijing as a new production factor, in the same category as land, capital, human labour and technology.
Data exchange in Guizhou makes China’s first sale of personal data
These exchanges are expected to address thorny issues such as how to classify, set a price and trade valuable data made available by companies.
In May, the state-backed Guiyang Global Big Data Exchange – the country’s first data exchange that began operations as early as 2015 – facilitated the country’s first sale of personal data, according to the provincial government of Guizhou in southwest China.
Meanwhile in Shanghai, “all kinds of entities” are encouraged to buy data products through the city’s data exchange, according to the municipal government. It indicated that those which meet certain conditions can be entitled to tax deduction for their research and development expenses.
Chinese laws, however, have yet to clarify definitions of data ownership and related rights, making it difficult for the industry to form a consensus, CAICT wrote in its white paper.
Why Hong Kong’s crypto rules are not as unique as some hoped
By 2025, the total scale of Shanghai’s computing power network will “quadruple from the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan”, which concluded in 2020, according to the municipal government.