With a global AI data shortage looming, China boosts its own supply
The initiative is designed to anchor Beijing’s AI Plus strategy, which calls for AI to be woven into the industrial fabric of the economy
China is moving to leverage data as a core strategic asset, aiming to build industry-specific data sets to power its next-generation artificial intelligence models, as developers worldwide grapple with a looming data drought.
On Monday, the country’s data authority unveiled a sweeping nationwide plan to boost the supply of high-quality AI training data, underscoring Beijing’s resolve to secure a leading position in the global AI competition.
The draft plan, published online by the National Data Administration, outlines a broad road map to expand the supply, circulation and commercialisation of industry-specific data sets. The initiative is designed to anchor Beijing’s AI Plus strategy – a top-down mandate to weave AI into the industrial fabric of the world’s second-largest economy.
By 2028, the agency aimed to field an expansive ecosystem of validated data sets covering bedrock sectors including scientific research, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, transport, finance, healthcare, education and e-commerce.
Cutting-edge frontiers like embodied AI, autonomous driving, low-altitude aviation and biomanufacturing will also be covered.
The plan called for an expansion into multimodal data – spanning text, code, images, audio and video – to train advanced systems capable of complex reasoning, agentic behaviour and controlling intelligent robots.