Accelerating the Cultivation of a Nationally Integrated Data Market

As a new type of production factor, data is the foundation of digitalization, networking, and intelligence. It has rapidly integrated into all links of production, distribution, circulation, consumption, and social service management, profoundly changing modes of production, lifestyles, and methods of social governance. In recent years, the scale advantage of China’s data resources has continued to expand, and the level of activity in data development and utilization has steadily increased. In 2024, the total national data production reached 41.06 zettabytes (ZB); the added value of core industries in the digital economy accounted for approximately 10% of GDP; the number of data technology enterprises utilizing large models and data application enterprises increased by 57.21% and 37.14% year-on-year, respectively.

数据作为新型生产要素，是数字化、网络化、智能化的基础，已快速融入生产、分配、流通、消费和社会服务管理等各个环节，深刻改变着生产方式、生活方式和社会治理方式。近年来，我国数据资源的规模优势持续扩大，对数据的开发利用活跃度稳步提升。2024年，全国数据生产总量达41.06泽字节（ZB）；数字经济核心产业增加值占国内生产总值比重达10%左右；利用大模型的数据技术企业和数据应用企业数量分别同比增长57.21%、37.14%。

General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized, “We must improve the income distribution mechanism for factors of production, stimulating the vitality of labor, knowledge, technology, management, capital, and data as production factors,” and “advance the construction of computing power infrastructure in a coordinated manner, deepening the development, utilization, and open sharing of data resources.” These important expositions point the direction for further promoting the efficient allocation of resource factors and unleashing the potential of data factors under the new circumstances. The “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese-Path Modernization” proposes “cultivating a nationally integrated technology and data market” and “building and operating national data infrastructure to promote data sharing.” [1]1 The “Decision” was adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the CPC in July 2024. It outlines a comprehensive reform agenda for the New Era. During the period of the 14th Five-Year Plan, to fully leverage the amplifying, multiplying, and doubling effects of data factors on economic development, and to further utilize China’s comparative advantages in data resource scale and application scenarios, it is essential to attach great importance to the optimal allocation of data resources, fully leverage the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, better play the role of the government, accelerate the cultivation of a nationally integrated data market, release the multiplier effect of data factors, and empower economic and social development.

习近平总书记强调，“要健全要素参与收入分配机制，激发劳动、知识、技术、管理、资本和数据等生产要素活力”“统筹推进算力基础设施建设，深化数据资源开发利用和开放共享”。这些重要论述对新形势下进一步促进资源要素高效配置、激发数据要素潜能指明了方向。《中共中央关于进一步全面深化改革、推进中国式现代化的决定》提出，“培育全国一体化技术和数据市场”“建设和运营国家数据基础设施，促进数据共享”。“十五五”时期，充分发挥数据要素对经济发展的放大、叠加、倍增作用，进一步用好我国在数据资源规模、应用场景等方面的比较优势，必须高度重视数据资源的优化配置，充分发挥市场在资源配置中的决定性作用，更好发挥政府作用，加快培育全国一体化数据市场，释放数据要素乘数效应，赋能经济社会发展。

Significant Advantages in Massive Data and Rich Scenarios

海量数据和丰富场景优势显著

Data is a foundational and strategic national resource and an important foundation for developing new quality productive forces. It can play a significant role in driving breakthroughs in technological innovation, optimizing the allocation of production factors, accelerating industrial transformation and upgrading, and improving total factor productivity. It can be said that the more valuable data there is, the stronger the multiplier effect formed by the multi-source integration of data, and the more solid the foundation for the development of the digital economy and even the intelligent economy.

数据是国家基础性战略性资源，也是发展新质生产力的重要基础，在驱动技术创新突破、优化生产要素配置、加速产业转型升级、提高全要素生产率等方面都能发挥重要作用。可以说，有价值的数据越多，数据多源融合形成的乘数效应就越强，数字经济乃至智能经济发展的基础就越坚实。

In recent years, the scale of China’s data production has grown rapidly. In 2023, total national data production reached 32.85 zettabytes (ZB), a year-on-year increase of 22.44%. In 2024, China’s data production accounted for 26.67% of the global total, and the volume of data used for AI development, training, and inference increased by 40.95% year-on-year. In the production field, intelligent links such as process optimization, quality inspection, and safety production generate massive amounts of data at high frequency; in the consumption field, data from smart devices such as smart homes and intelligent connected vehicles ranks among the fastest-growing; at the regional level, data production in Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Henan, and Sichuan accounts for nearly 60% of the national total; at the industry level, the manufacturing, finance, and transportation and logistics sectors rank among the top three in total data production, and data production in new fields such as the low-altitude economy and robotics also shows a good development trend.

近年来，我国数据生产规模快速增长。2023年全国数据生产总量达32.85泽字节（ZB），同比增长22.44%。2024年，我国数据生产总量占全球数据总量的26.67%，用于人工智能开发、训练和推理的数据量同比增长40.95%。在生产领域，工艺优化、质量检验、安全生产等智能化环节高频次生成海量数据；在消费领域，智能家居、智能网联汽车等智能设备数据增速位居前列；在区域层面，广东、江苏、山东、浙江、河南和四川的数据生产量占到全国的近六成；在产业层面，制造、金融、交通物流行业的数据生产总量位居前三，低空经济、机器人等新领域的数据生产量也呈现良好发展态势。

At the same time, the application scenarios for data factors are continuously enriched and the level of application is steadily improving. A complete industrial system, with a full chain, complete supporting facilities, and comprehensive factors, provides support for accelerating the development of industrial digitalization and digital industrialization, as well as for better applying data factors, stimulating data value, and accelerating technological iteration. Currently, smart manufacturing, smart cities, fintech, healthcare, e-commerce, and transportation and logistics have become the main fields for data application, with major data exchanges listing data products for related scenarios. At the same time, the National Data Administration, in conjunction with relevant localities and departments, is focusing on building a number of exemplary data application scenarios to explore replicable and scalable models. In 2024, the number of granted invention patents in core industries of the digital economy in China reached 500,000, ranking first globally, a year-on-year increase of 23.1%, far exceeding the global average growth rate.

与此同时，数据要素的应用场景不断丰富、应用水平持续提升。完备的产业体系，链条完整、配套齐全、要素完备的产业生态，都为产业数字化和数字产业化加快发展，以及更好应用数据要素、激发数据价值、加速技术迭代提供了支撑。当前，智能制造、智慧城市、金融科技、医疗健康、电子商务、交通物流等成为数据应用的主要场域，各大数据交易所上架了相关场景的数据产品。同时，国家数据局会同相关地方和部门重点打造一批示范性数据应用场景，探索形成可复制、可推广模式。2024年，我国数字经济核心产业发明专利授权量达50万件，位居全球第一，同比增长23.1%，远超全球平均增速。

Currently, China is in a critical period of transitioning between old and new growth drivers. Data factors have become a key link connecting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries with the rapid development of emerging industries. Accelerating the cultivation of a nationally integrated data market and improving the efficiency of market-based allocation of data factors is both an urgent task to accelerate the release of the value of data factors and a strategic measure to transform China’s advantages in massive data and rich scenarios into new momentum for economic growth and new advantages in national competition.

当前，我国正处于新旧动能转换的关键时期。数据要素成为连接传统产业转型升级与新兴产业快速发展的关键纽带。加快培育全国一体化数据市场，提升数据要素市场化配置的效率，既是加快释放数据要素价值的当务之急，也是推动我国海量数据与丰富场景优势转化为经济增长新动能和国家竞争新优势的战略举措。

The Great Significance of Promoting Efficient Allocation of Data Factors

促进数据要素高效配置意义重大

The market is the scarcest resource, and the super-large market is China’s advantage. Making good use of market resources and advantages, deeply advancing the construction of a unified national market, and leveraging the role of the world’s second-largest consumer market is a strategic move. As digitalization, networking, and intelligence accelerate, among the factors for developing new quality productive forces, the importance of data factors is increasingly prominent, having a significant impact on the transformation of traditional production methods, and has become a foundational and strategic resource. To promote the marketization and valorization of data factors, achieving “data that can be supplied, flows smoothly, is used well, and is secure,” it is necessary to accelerate the construction of an efficient, standardized, fair, competitive, and fully open unified national market, especially by cultivating a nationally integrated data market, promoting the smooth flow and efficient allocation of factor resources on a larger scale.

市场是最稀缺的资源，超大规模市场是我国的优势所在。用好市场资源和优势，纵深推进全国统一大市场建设，将全球第二大消费市场的作用发挥出来，是战略之举。随着数字化、网络化、智能化进程不断加快，在发展新质生产力的诸要素中，数据要素的重要性日益凸显，对传统生产方式变革具有重大影响，已成为基础性资源和战略性资源。推动数据要素市场化价值化，实现数据“供得出、流得动、用得好、保安全”，就要加快建设高效规范、公平竞争、充分开放的全国统一大市场，特别是培育全国一体化数据市场，促进要素资源在更大范围内顺畅流动和高效配置。

This is necessary for constructing a new development pattern and promoting high-quality development. Economic activities require the organic connection of various production factors in the links of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption to achieve cyclical flow. Whether constructing a new development pattern or promoting high-quality development, achieving unimpeded economic circulation is key. Promoting the smooth flow of various production factors and comprehensively improving the efficiency of coordinated factor allocation is an important part of this. As an important production factor, data has characteristics such as increasing returns and low-cost replication, which are conducive to optimizing resource allocation, empowering the real economy, developing new quality productive forces, promoting the smooth flow of various production factors, and driving profound changes in production, life, economic development, and social governance methods. Data factors can promote the optimal reorganization of traditional production factors such as technology, capital, labor, and land, overcoming adverse effects such as rising labor costs and diminishing marginal returns on capital investment, significantly improving total factor productivity, achieving optimization of resource allocation efficiency and maximization of benefits at a higher level and on a larger scale, continuously spawning new industries, new business forms, new models, and new technologies. While promoting changes in the quality, efficiency, and driving forces of economic development, it also facilitates the smooth circulation of information flows, technology flows, capital flows, and talent flows between domestic and international markets, promoting the integration and connection of rules and systems, and cooperation and docking of market channels. Accelerating the cultivation of a nationally integrated data market, fully leveraging the role of data as a foundational and strategic resource, and promoting the smooth transition and connection between old and new growth drivers for economic development are inherent requirements for constructing a new development pattern and promoting high-quality development.

这是构建新发展格局、推动高质量发展的需要。经济活动需要各种生产要素的组合在生产、分配、流通、消费各环节有机衔接，从而实现循环流转。无论是构建新发展格局，还是推动高质量发展，实现经济循环的畅通无阻都是关键所在。促进各类生产要素顺畅流动，全面提高要素协同配置效率，是其中重要一环。数据作为重要生产要素，具有报酬递增、低成本复用等特点，有利于优化资源配置、赋能实体经济、发展新质生产力，推动各类生产要素顺畅流动，促进生产生活、经济发展和社会治理方式深刻变革。数据要素能促进技术、资本、劳动力、土地等传统生产要素优化重组，克服劳动力成本上升、资本投入边际收益递减等不利因素影响，大幅提升全要素生产率，在更高水平、更大范围实现资源配置效率最优化、效益最大化，不断催生新产业、新业态、新模式、新技术，在推动经济发展质量变革、效率变革、动力变革的同时，促进信息流、技术流、资金流、人才流等在国内市场与国际市场之间顺畅循环，推动规则制度衔接融合、市场渠道合作对接。加快培育全国一体化数据市场，充分发挥数据作为基础性战略性资源的作用，推动经济发展新旧动能平稳接续转换，是构建新发展格局、推动高质量发展的题中之义。

This is necessary for gaining new advantages in international competition. With the accelerated innovation of technologies such as the Internet, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain, the digital economy is developing at an unprecedented speed, with an unprecedented breadth of radiation and depth of impact, and has become a new focus of international competition. As a new type of production factor in the era of the digital economy, data can drive the development of new economic forms. It not only plays a role in consolidating the technological foundation and computing power base in the process of cultivating strategic emerging industries but also provides support for spawning new business forms and models such as personalized customization and intelligent services. Only by accelerating the cultivation of a nationally integrated data market, stimulating the multiplier effect of data factors, and promoting the participation of new production factors in production creation and empowerment of industrial upgrading on a larger scale and at a deeper level can China seize the initiative in international competition in the digital economy.

这是赢得国际竞争新优势的需要。随着互联网、大数据、云计算、人工智能、区块链等技术加速创新，数字经济发展速度之快、辐射范围之广、影响程度之深前所未有，已成为国际竞争的新焦点。作为数字经济时代的新型生产要素，数据能驱动新经济形态发展，既在培育战略性新兴产业的过程中发挥着筑牢技术根基与算力底座的作用，也为催生个性化定制、智慧化服务等新业态新模式提供支撑。加快培育全国一体化数据市场，激发数据要素的乘数效应，推动新型生产要素在更大范围和更深层次参与生产创造、赋能产业升级，我国才能在数字经济国际竞争中抢占先机。

Exploring Paths for Data Marketization and Valorization

探索数据市场化价值化路径

Deepening the reform of market-based allocation of factors of production is a key link in building a unified national market. Accelerating the cultivation of a nationally integrated data market requires focusing on several main directions. The first is cultivating a unified large market. In terms of promoting the aggregation of data resources, it must be able to accommodate public data, enterprise data, and personal data; in terms of breaking down barriers to data circulation in regional markets, it must eliminate “data silos” and form an interconnected institutional mechanism that spans regions, venues, scenarios, and enterprises. The second is cultivating a secure and open market. It must provide security guarantees for the open circulation of data, rely on trusted data spaces to form a full-lifecycle security guarantee mechanism, and clarify the data security protection responsibilities of all parties. While ensuring the secure circulation of data, it must allow all types of business entities to fully enjoy the development dividends brought by the circulation of data factors. The third is cultivating a mutually beneficial and cooperative market. Data trading venues at all levels should perform functions such as compliance supervision and node support, form a pattern of differentiated competition, and enable data trading venues at different levels to establish mechanisms for benefit sharing and compensation, thereby promoting mutual benefit and cooperation.

深化要素市场化配置改革，是建设全国统一大市场的关键环节。加快培育全国一体化数据市场，需聚焦几个主攻方向。一是培育统一的大市场。在促进数据资源汇聚方面，能够容纳公共数据、企业数据、个人数据等；在打破区域市场数据流通壁垒方面，能够消除“数据孤岛”，形成跨地域、跨场所、跨场景、跨企业的互联互通体制机制。二是培育安全开放的市场。要为数据开放流通提供安全保障，依托可信数据空间形成全生命周期安全保障机制，明确各方的数据安全保护责任。在保障数据安全流通的同时，让各类经营主体应享尽享数据要素流通带来的发展红利。三是培育互惠合作的市场。各级数据交易场所应发挥合规监管、节点支撑等功能，形成差异化竞争态势，让不同层级数据交易场所形成利益分享与补偿机制，促进互惠合作。

At present, China has deployed the construction of national data factor comprehensive pilot zones in 10 provinces: Beijing, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Hainan, and Guizhou, supporting local governments in carrying out pilot initiatives in cultivating business entities and thriving and expanding the data market. Accelerating the cultivation of a nationally integrated data market requires speeding up the exploration of pathways for the marketization and valorization of data, stimulating the multiplier effect of data factors on a larger scale, and comprehensively unleashing the integration efficiency of the real economy and the digital economy.

当前，我国在北京、辽宁、浙江、安徽、山东、河南、湖北、湖南、海南、贵州10个省份部署建设国家数据要素综合试验区，支持各地在培育经营主体、繁荣壮大数据市场等方面开展先行先试。加快培育全国一体化数据市场，需加快探索数据市场化价值化路径，在更大范围激发数据要素乘数效应，全面释放实体经济和数字经济融合效能。

Accelerate the construction of basic data systems. It is necessary to fully understand and grasp the basic laws of data property rights, circulation, trading, use, distribution, governance, and security, and explore property rights systems and market systems conducive to data security protection, effective use, and compliant circulation. Improve the market-based allocation mechanism for data factors, expand the scope of market-based allocation of data factors and the channels for distribution according to value contribution; explore the establishment of a data property rights system, promote the structural separation and orderly circulation of data property rights; improve and standardize data circulation rules, build a trading system that promotes use and circulation and combines on-exchange and off-exchange mechanisms; orderly develop cross-border data circulation and trading, and establish a trusted data circulation system where data sources can be confirmed, the scope of use can be defined, the circulation process can be traced, and security risks can be prevented. Security must also be embedded throughout the entire process of data governance, improve industry self-discipline mechanisms, and standardize market development order.

加快构建数据基础制度。需充分认识和把握数据产权、流通、交易、使用、分配、治理、安全等基本规律，探索有利于数据安全保护、有效利用、合规流通的产权制度和市场体系。完善数据要素市场化配置机制，扩大数据要素市场化配置范围和按价值贡献参与分配渠道；探索建立数据产权制度，推动数据产权结构性分置和有序流通；完善和规范数据流通规则，构建促进使用和流通、场内场外相结合的交易制度体系；有序发展数据跨境流通和交易，建立数据来源可确认、使用范围可界定、流通过程可追溯、安全风险可防范的数据可信流通体系。还要把安全贯穿数据治理全过程，完善行业自律机制，规范市场发展秩序。

Strengthen data infrastructure construction. Promoting the extension and expansion of digital infrastructure toward data infrastructure, and building and operating data infrastructure well, is of great significance for supporting the implementation of basic data systems and cultivating a nationally integrated data market. It is necessary to prioritize the improvement of infrastructure levels, focusing on building a high-speed interconnected, efficiently dispatched, open and inclusive, secure and reliable national data infrastructure, opening up data circulation arteries, smoothing data resource cycles, promoting data application development, and promoting the formation of a new type of infrastructure system that aims to release the value of data factors, is supported by networks, is based on computing power, and focuses on the construction of data circulation and utilization facilities. At the same time, promote the construction of traditional infrastructure, focusing on key links and core application scenarios of data circulation, unified planning, large-scale deployment, and system integration, to promote the optimization and upgrading of traditional infrastructure.

加强数据基础设施建设。推动数字基础设施向数据基础设施延伸和拓展，建设和运营好数据基础设施，对于支撑数据基础制度落地、培育全国一体化数据市场具有重要意义。需将提升基础设施水平摆在突出位置，以建设高速互联、高效调度、开放普惠、安全可靠的国家数据基础设施为重点，打通数据流通动脉、畅通数据资源循环、推进数据应用开发，推动形成以释放数据要素价值为目标、以网络为支撑、以算力为底座、以数据流通利用设施建设为重点的新型基础设施体系，同时推进传统基础设施建设，围绕数据流通的关键环节与核心应用场景，统一规划、规模部署、系统集成，推动传统基础设施优化升级。

Adjust and optimize the supply of data factors. Improving the quantity and quality of data factor supply is an important lever for cultivating a nationally integrated data market. It is necessary to raise the supply level of public data, enterprise data, and personal data, attract more demand-side entities to enter the market for trading, form an attraction for the supply side, and achieve a positive cycle of mutual attraction between supply and demand. Accelerate the development and utilization of public data resources, promote the development and utilization of enterprise data resources, promote the compliant use of personal data resources, strengthen classified and graded management of data, and manage what should be managed while releasing what should be released. Establish a trusted data circulation system to enhance the availability, trustworthiness, circulability, and traceability of data. Achieve dynamic management of the entire process of data circulation, activate data value in compliant circulation and use, and actively and effectively prevent and resolve various data risks.

调整优化数据要素供给。提高数据要素供给数量和质量，是培育全国一体化数据市场的重要抓手。需提高公共数据、企业数据、个人数据的供给水平，吸引更多需求方入场交易，形成对供给方的吸引力，实现供需双方相互吸引的正循环。加快公共数据资源的开发利用，促进企业数据资源的开发利用，推动个人数据资源的合规利用，加强数据分类分级管理，把该管的管住、该放的放开。建立数据可信流通体系，增强数据的可用、可信、可流通、可追溯水平。实现数据流通全过程动态管理，在合规流通使用中激活数据价值，积极有效防范和化解各种数据风险。

Coordinate the construction of standardized and efficient data trading venues. It is necessary to strengthen the design of the data trading venue system, coordinate and optimize the planning and layout of data trading venues, formulate a national unified standard system for data trading and security, and reduce transaction costs. Guide the common development of multiple types of data trading venues, highlight the compliance supervision and basic service functions of national-level data trading venues, and strengthen their public attributes and public welfare positioning; standardize regional data trading venues and industry-specific data trading platforms established by various regions and departments, build a multi-level market trading system, and promote the circulation and use of regional and industry-specific data. Promote the interconnection of data trading venues, achieve differentiated competition among various data trading institutions, and form a circulation system that is centralized and unified, functionally complementary, and coexisting in competition and cooperation.

统筹构建规范高效的数据交易场所。需加强数据交易场所体系设计，统筹优化数据交易场所的规划布局，制定全国统一的数据交易、安全等标准体系，降低交易成本。引导多种类型的数据交易场所共同发展，突出国家级数据交易场所合规监管和基础服务功能，强化其公共属性和公益定位；规范各地区各部门设立的区域性数据交易场所和行业性数据交易平台，构建多层次市场交易体系，推动区域性、行业性数据流通使用。推动数据交易场所的互联互通，实现各类数据交易机构错位竞争，形成集中统一、功能互补、竞合并存的流通体系。

(The author is a researcher at the Liaoning Provincial Research Center for the Theory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and President of Dongbei University of Finance and Economics)

（作者系辽宁省中国特色社会主义理论体系研究中心研究员、东北财经大学校长）

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