Data-powered development gains steam in China

Visitors take photos of a humanoid robot at the Digital and Smart Manufacturing of CEEC exhibition area of the 4th China-CEEC Expo & International Consumer Goods Fair in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province, May 22, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

China's data-driven development has gained steam since the implementation of a three-year action plan aimed at promoting the use of data as a factor of production and enhancing its role in driving economic and social development.

The 2024-2026 action plan has played an important role in promoting the integration of data into large-scale socialized production since it was released more than a year ago, with positive progress made in the market-oriented development of data, the National Data Administration said on Thursday.

An increasing number of enterprises are engaging in the data market, Luan Jie, an official with the administration, told a news briefing. Nearly 500 digital technology companies have been established by central enterprises, and about 66 percent of the leading enterprises across industries in China have purchased data, Luan added.

The application of data has delivered positive outcomes across industries, yielding substantial benefits for enterprises. In agriculture, for instance, some planting companies have boosted crop yields by 5.5 percent by using data to optimize the fertilization process, the administration noted.

In the industrial sector, some leading enterprises have shortened their R&D, procurement and high-end product delivery cycles by over 30 percent through the integration of industrial chain data, including R&D, logistics, inventory and pricing information.

The administration said it will beef up efforts to pilot the program, address bottlenecks and challenges in applying data to key scenarios, and push for the implementation of the action plan.