China unveils 3-year ‘data action plan’ as Beijing seeks to boost growth through tech
- China aims to build more than 300 ‘representative’ application scenarios by 2026, and grow its data industry by 20 per cent every year
- The digital economy still faces challenges including low quality of data supply, a poor circulation mechanism and untapped applications potential
China’s newly established data administration, an agency created by Beijing to make data an effective production factor, has unveiled a three-year action plan to use the country’s massive troves of information to boost its economy.
According to the plan published by the National Data Administration (NDA) on Thursday, China aims to build more than 300 “representative” application scenarios by 2026, grow its data industry by 20 per cent every year, and multiply data trading volume.
The initiative is aimed at “cultivating” a new driving force for China’s economic development, leveraging the country’s advantages including a sizeable market, and abundant data resources and use cases, the NDA said.
The agency’s plan involves mobilising data resources to support development of China’s own artificial intelligence (AI) large language models - the technology used to train AI applications like ChatGPT. It will also increase efforts to have research institutions and leading enterprises build industry databases to create high quality datasets for training AI models.
The blueprint comes at a time when China’s digital economy, having developed rapidly in recent years, still faces challenges including the low quality of data supply, a poor circulation mechanism and untapped potential for applications, it said.