On September 11, 2026, China's National Data Administration launched a national data property rights registration system. The system issues what Chinese regulators call "identity certificates" for data — formal documentation of who holds a dataset, who can use it, and who can profit from it. Within ten days, 56 companies and institutions had received the first batch of certificates, covering holding rights, usage rights, and operational rights.
The registration system is the latest piece of infrastructure in a market that has been building for a decade — and that has no direct equivalent in the United States.
China's data industry reached 6.78 trillion yuan ($950 billion) in 2025, up 15.7 percent year over year, according to the China Data Industry Development Report (2026). More than 70 percent of that output is tied to AI-related products and services, according to the National Data Administration. The country now has more than 482,000 data enterprises, according to the National Data Development Research Institute. The National Data Administration projects that the sector will exceed 10 trillion yuan during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
The United States, by contrast, has no national framework for pricing data as an asset. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has been studying the treatment of data as a capital asset since at least 2019, and the System of National Accounts' 2025 revision recommends capitalizing "own-account data" — data produced for internal use — as an intangible asset. But the BEA does not plan to introduce that change into GDP accounting until 2028. There is no national data registry, no standardized property rights framework, and no market infrastructure for trading data as a commodity.
The Scale of the Data Element Market
The broader "data element" market — the segment that prices and trades data as an economic input — reached 2,115.4 billion yuan in 2024 and was projected to hit 2,042.9 billion yuan in 2025, with forecasts for 2026 ranging from 1.8 trillion to 2.5 trillion yuan. The compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2025 was 29.36 percent, significantly above the overall digital economy's growth rate.
Those figures describe a market that is still small relative to China's overall data industry. But the growth rate tells the more important story. The data element market is expanding at nearly 30 percent annually — a pace that reflects the institutional infrastructure being built beneath it.
The infrastructure includes 80-plus data exchanges across the country. The largest, Shenzhen Data Exchange, has reached 105.39 billion yuan in cumulative transaction volume, followed by Guiyang, Guangzhou, and Beijing exchanges in the 50 billion yuan range, and Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Zhengzhou in the 20 billion yuan range. The number of "data merchants" — companies that buy, process, and sell data products — has grown to over 1 million.
On September 25-27, 2026, eight data exchanges completed their first cross-exchange trades, including Beijing-Guiyang, Tianjin-Hainan, and Zhengzhou-Shanghai pairings totaling 8.924 million yuan. The amounts are small. The mechanism is not.
Data as a Balance Sheet Asset
The most consequential development in China's data market is not the trading volume. It is the accounting.
In January 2024, China's Ministry of Finance implemented a temporary regulation allowing enterprises to recognize data resources on their balance sheets as intangible assets or inventory. By April 2026, 136 A-share listed companies had disclosed data resource capitalization totaling 37.86 billion yuan. Another 417 non-listed companies had disclosed data resource entries, receiving cumulative financing of 20.92 billion yuan.
The largest entries came from state-owned telecommunications companies: China Mobile (11.05 billion yuan), China Unicom (3.1 billion yuan), and China Telecom (2.09 billion yuan). Together, the three carriers accounted for 55.46 percent of all listed-company data asset entries.
The accounting treatment matters because it turns data from an expense into an asset. A company that capitalizes its data resources can borrow against them, securitize them, or use them as collateral. A company that expenses them cannot.
The financing activity that followed illustrates the difference. Data asset-backed securities (ABS) issuance accelerated from 11 deals worth 4.59 billion yuan in 2025 to 39 accepted projects in the first four months of 2026 alone, with total applications exceeding 129.3 billion yuan. By early 2026, 24 deals had been approved, covering 89.57 billion yuan.
The first pure data asset ABS was issued in Qingdao in March 2026, with a shelf registration of 1 billion yuan and an initial tranche of 532 million yuan that was oversubscribed 3.72 times. In May, Handan, Hebei province, completed a 532 million yuan ABS backed entirely by data assets as collateral. In June, Kunshan issued a 600 million yuan ABS at a 1.68 percent coupon rate — a rate comparable to high-grade corporate debt.
Data asset pledge financing has followed the same trajectory. A gold mine in Shandong pledged two data assets for a 10 million yuan loan. A parking data operator in Yunnan secured 10 million yuan at a 2.7 percent interest rate. A power company in Shandong used a heating dataset as collateral for a 20 million yuan loan.
These are not pilot projects. They are transactions with real collateral, real lenders, and real repayment obligations.
The Institutional Architecture
The data asset financing wave did not emerge spontaneously. It was built on a layer of institutional infrastructure that China has assembled over the past four years.
The National Data Administration was established in October 2023 as a cabinet-level agency responsible for data governance, data markets, and data infrastructure. No equivalent exists in the United States.
The "Data Element ×" three-year action plan, launched in January 2024, set targets for expanding data application scenarios, achieving over 20 percent annual growth in the data industry, and doubling data transaction volume by the end of 2026. The plan exceeded its targets ahead of schedule.
The Data Property Rights Registration Guidelines, issued in July 2026, divided data rights into three categories: holding rights, usage rights, and operational rights. The national registration system launched in September operationalized that framework.
The "Computing-Power Coordination" policy, written into the government work report in March 2026, linked data infrastructure to compute infrastructure. The token economy — measured in daily token calls, which grew from 100 billion at the start of 2024 to over 140 trillion by 2026 — became the operational metric for data value.
The architecture is not complete. The data element market remains small relative to the overall data industry. Only a fraction of data resources are registered, capitalized, or traded. The 37.86 billion yuan in listed-company data asset entries is a rounding error against the 6.78 trillion yuan data industry.
But the direction is clear. China is building the legal, accounting, and financial infrastructure to treat data as a capital asset — a standard that the United States has studied but not adopted.
What America Can't Price
The United States has no shortage of data. It generates more than any other country. Its technology companies — Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta — hold some of the most valuable datasets in the world.
What it lacks is a mechanism to price them as assets.
The BEA's own research acknowledges the gap. A 2026 BEA working paper estimated the aggregate value of data at approximately 1.5 percent of GDP — a figure that would represent more than $400 billion if capitalized. But the BEA does not plan to introduce that treatment into official GDP accounting until 2028.
The absence of a national framework has consequences. U.S. companies that invest heavily in data collection and curation generally expense those costs rather than capitalize them. They cannot borrow against their data. They cannot securitize it. They cannot use it as collateral in a structured financing.
China can. The 89.57 billion yuan in approved data asset ABS deals is small in absolute terms. But it represents a market that did not exist two years ago — and that is growing at a pace that the U.S. institutional framework is not designed to match.
What the Numbers Mean
China's data market is not yet a threat to the U.S. AI industry. The data element market is measured in billions, not trillions. The ABS market is nascent. The accounting standards are new, and the enforcement mechanisms are untested.
But the institutional infrastructure is real. The registration system is live. The property rights framework is defined. The financing channels are open. The companies using them — China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, and hundreds of smaller enterprises — are using these instruments in practice: borrowing, securitizing, and capitalizing data resources.
The United States has the data. What it does not have is a way to put it on the balance sheet. That gap reflects institutional differences rather than technological ones — a difference in how the two countries define, measure, and monetize the asset that both are accumulating.
China's data industry reached 6.78 trillion yuan in 2025. Its data element market is growing at 30 percent annually. Its data asset ABS market is expanding from a standing start. The United States has no equivalent framework. For now, that gap remains unpriced.
Sources: National Data Administration via China Government Network (September 11, 2026); Guangming Daily (September 22, 2026); China Data Industry Development Report (2026) via Sina Finance (September 7, 2026); National Data Development Research Institute via CCTV News (August 2026); Xinhua Finance (June 25, 2026); AskCI Consulting (August 8, 2026); National Data Administration policy documents (July 2026); Guomai Research Institute (September 28, 2026); BEA Director's Blog (April 20, 2026); BEA Working Paper (March 2026); Xinhua Finance (April 8, 2026); Xinhua Finance (March 13, 2026); Economic Daily (May 28, 2026); China Financial Information Network (June 3, 2026); China Financial Information Network (September 7, 2026).
Disclaimer
The information provided in this article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. The author and publisher are not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this article. Readers should consult qualified professionals for advice specific to their situation. All trademarks and references to third-party products, services, or organizations are the property of their respective owners. The performance data and benchmarks discussed are based on specific research studies and may not generalize to all use cases or environments. As of the publication date, the AI landscape continues to evolve rapidly, and readers should verify current information independently.
Limitations
This analysis is based on reporting and public data available as of the article date; figures may be revised as sources update.
Forecasts from third-party analysts can change with market conditions.
Cost and pricing examples are point-in-time estimates; actual rates vary.
Country and company comparisons rely on public reporting, not operational data.
This sector moves fast; timelines and deal terms may be updated later.
Company deals and regulatory rulings may evolve; verify current status.
AI infrastructure is changing quickly; claims can become outdated soon.
Sources
- National Data Administration via China Government Network (September 11, 2026)
- Guangming Daily (September 22, 2026)
- China Data Industry Development Report (2026) via Sina Finance (September 7, 2026)
- National Data Development Research Institute via CCTV News (August 2026)
- Xinhua Finance (June 25, 2026)
- AskCI Consulting (August 8, 2026)
- National Data Administration policy documents (July 2026)
- Guomai Research Institute (September 28, 2026)
- BEA Director's Blog (April 20, 2026)
- BEA Working Paper (March 2026)
- Xinhua Finance (April 8, 2026)
- Xinhua Finance (March 13, 2026)
- Economic Daily (May 28, 2026)
- China Financial Information Network (June 3, 2026)
- China Financial Information Network (September 7, 2026).
The information provided in this article is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice. The author and publisher are not responsible for any actions taken based on the content of this article. Readers should consult qualified professionals for advice specific to their situation. All trademarks and references to third-party products, services, or organizations are the property of their respective owners. The performance data and benchmarks discussed are based on specific research studies and may not generalize to all use cases or environments. As of the publication date, the AI landscape continues to evolve rapidly, and readers should verify current information independently.
Limitations: This analysis is based on reporting and public data available as of the article date; figures may be revised as sources update.; Forecasts from third-party analysts can change with market conditions.; Cost and pricing examples are point-in-time estimates; actual rates vary.; Country and company comparisons rely on public reporting, not operational data.; This sector moves fast; timelines and deal terms may be updated later.; Company deals and regulatory rulings may evolve; verify current status.; AI infrastructure is changing quickly; claims can become outdated soon.