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The National Institute for Data Development released its 2026 report at the China International Big Data Industry Expo, showing the data industry reached 6.78 trillion yuan in 2025, Xinhua reported on Friday. This represented a 15.7 percent expansion from the prior year, building on growth from 5.06 trillion yuan in 2023 and 5.86 trillion yuan in 2024. Data-related software products, which include artificial intelligence application software, and data resource products encompassing token services generated a combined 4.99 trillion yuan, accounting for 73.6 percent of the industry total, the institute’s assessment found.
Nationwide, the number of data enterprises stood at 482,000 at the end of 2025, reflecting a 17.9 percent year-on-year increase, according to the report. The eastern region alone contributed 5.23 trillion yuan to the industry scale, with cluster effects becoming more pronounced. Financing activities proved especially robust for companies focused on large models, synthetic simulation and embodied intelligent services.
By August 2026, more than 126,000 high-quality datasets had been developed across China with a total volume exceeding 1,815 petabytes, National Data Bureau data places the increase at over 89 percent since March. Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Bureau, said, “AI development is heavily driven by data.” The datasets form a critical foundation for advancing artificial intelligence technologies.
Intelligent computing power continued its rapid ascent, attaining 2.4 million PFLOPS by June 2026 for a 50.9 percent gain in the first six months of the year, the report indicated. Eight national computing hubs represented close to 90 percent of the country’s intelligent computing resources. Guizhou province, host of the expo, operated 50 key data centers with 176.57 EFLOPS of capacity as of late July, nearly all of it oriented toward AI.
Patent grants for intelligent agents surpassed 3,400 in 2025, more than twice the total from the year before, according to the institute. This surge has accelerated the emergence of token services as a new business format linking data elements with AI applications. Hu Jianbo, who heads the National Institute of Data Development, stated that such services will spawn fresh industrial ecosystems while AI opens additional avenues for data sector progress.
The 12th edition of the China International Big Data Industry Expo, themed around tokens as a pathway to unlocking data value, drew participation from 372 companies and more than 16,000 guests, Xinhua reported. The event served as the platform for presenting the latest industry statistics and projections. China’s policy framework has supported this expansion since formally designating data as a production factor in 2019 and standing up the National Data Bureau four years later.
