China News recently reported that the newly established China National Data Bureau officially opened for business on October 25. Below are some key excerpts from the article:
The main responsibilities of this ministry-level organization are to promote the construction of data infrastructure systems, to coordinate the integration, sharing, development and utilization of data resources, and to establish Digital China, Digital Economy, and Digital Society.
Data has been playing an increasingly important role in China’s national economic and social development. Data as a critical resource should be managed by a central ministry. At present, the scale of China’s digital economy has developed significantly. In 2022, it has reached RMB 50.2 trillion (US$6.86 trillion), accounting for more than 41 percent of the Chinese GDP, and the total volume ranked second in the world.
The Bureau will focus on improving China’s data infrastructure, which is still “hard infrastructure” based on traditional information network infrastructure and digital infrastructure designs. However, based on the characteristics of the industrialization of data elements, the second “soft infrastructure” level should include well-coordinated standards, specifications, tools, etc. This is a key point in entering the data digitization stage. More importantly, for certain industries where the data scale is relatively large, the data quality is relatively high, and the data potential is relatively rich, a data space must be established to form a new data infrastructure from bottom to top, to support the industrialization of data use.
Source: China News, October 27, 2023
https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/2023/10-27/10101575.shtml