China national data agency to spur digital economy and AI aspirations

Data is the new oil, and China has launched a new agency to keep it at the forefront in the digital era. The National Data Administration (NDA) will build on China’s artificial intelligence and digital economy aspirations, government officials say.

NDA was first unveiled in March as President Xi Jinping’s newest force to digitize the country’s government services, build smart cities, and foster easier data sharing between public and private entities.

NDA falls under the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s all-powerful economic planner. It will assume some responsibilities previously assigned to the Cyberspace Administration of China, reports the South China Morning Post.

One of the key responsibilities will be creating the infrastructure and standards for data sharing. China is one of the world’s largest data generators; in 2022, it generated 8.1 zettabytes of data, second only to the United States. This data, however, rests on the servers of thousands of private and public entities.

The new agency will also be tasked with growing China’s digital economy. The East Asian country has become a digital powerhouse, with some success stories like Tencent, Bytedance, and Alibaba being market leaders in their industries. Data from the Chinese government places the value of the country’s digital economy at 50.2 trillion yuan (US$690 billion).

But Jinping’s biggest motivation for launching the new agency is the rise of AI. China and the Western world are in a race to dominate the new technology—a race that has led to new restrictions on commodity and technology trading between the two blocs. AI runs on data, and by enhancing how his country collects, stores, and shares data, Jinping will give China a big boost in this race.

“I think the most direct trigger [for setting up the data agency] is artificial intelligence. As China is keen to develop AI, it needs to make its massive data relevant and accessible,” commented Zeng Liaoyuan, an ICT professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

Liu Liehong will head the new agency. The IT industry veteran was most recently the chairman of China Unicom, the state-owned telco giant which is the sixth-largest mobile provider in the world.

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