A visitor experiences a 5G remote controlled cockpit model that can control unmanned trucks at the 1st Global Digital Trade Expo in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, on Dec 12. (Photo: IC)

The top authorities recently issued a guideline document, saying China will build a data infrastructure system that conforms to the development law of the digital economy and ensures national data security.

Building a data infrastructure system will give full play to the role of data elements and facilitate the development of the digital economy. It will ensure all people share the dividends of the digital economy, and modernize the national governance system and governance capacity.

Given that data can be copied infinitely at near-zero cost, it poses new challenges to the traditional systems of property rights, circulation, distribution, and governance. Therefore, a production relationship compatible with the development of digital productivity should be urgently built to constantly liberate and develop digital productivity. According to the guideline document, China will strengthen the top-level design of data circulation transactions in circulation rules, trading markets, and service ecology, establish data circulation access standard rules, and explore the construction of a data quality standardization system.

At the same time, it will establish a data property rights system framework with the "separation" of data resource holding right, data processing and use right, and data product management right.

The scale of China's digital economy has ranked second in the world for many consecutive years. It is expected that by 2025, the total data generated in China will account for about 27.8 percent of the global total.

China will build a data property rights system that ensures the use of data in compliance with rules, an efficient data element circulation and trading system, a data element income distribution system that reflects efficiency and promotes fairness, and a data element governance system that is safe, controllable, flexible and inclusive. The construction of these four pillars of China's data infrastructure system will help China fully realize the value of data elements and make all people share the dividends of the digital economy's development.