Thriving data exchanges across China, including the Shanghai Data Exchange — which began official operations recently — have demonstrated market entities' rising interest in data trading amid the country's efforts to build an ecosystem for this burgeoning trading activity, said experts.

After more than a year of trial operations, the Shanghai Data Exchange, initiated on Nov 25, 2021 to become the country's first national-level exchange of its kind, announced on Tuesday the commencement of official operations. The exchange will begin to charge service and transaction fees based on its September announcement.

For data buyers, service fees will involve a one-time cost of 9,980 yuan ($1,448). The additional service fee for the data supplier is set at 2.5 percent of total trading value, according to the SDE's announcement.

The time is prime for the SDE's official launch of operations as its 13-month trial run has nurtured a complete services process including a set of regulations, a data product registration system and a trading mechanism, according to SDE officials.

To date, all of SDE's data products can be traded online. While the trading system for financial data products has been completed, that for transportation and manufacturing data products is undergoing orderly construction, they added.

At present, there are more than 800 data products listed on the SDE, while only 20 products debuted on the first day of the exchange's trial run. The annual trading value of the SDE topped over 100 million yuan in 2022, with the number expected to top over 1 billion yuan this year in light of the rising trading activity, said SDE General Manager Tang Qifeng.

One major strength of the SDE is the trading mechanisms built over the past year. It will introduce more trading participants from key industries such as smart manufacturing, energy saving, carbon emissions reduction, green construction and green energy, Tang said.

Huang Lihua, professor at Fudan University's School of Management, said another nine data exchanges have been established throughout China ever since the trial launch of the SDE. The network of these data exchanges is not only conducive to a smoother data flow but also the maturity of the market. The rising number of both data buyers and suppliers reflects the higher trading activity, she said.

The Shenzhen Data Exchange launched on Nov 15 is one example. Its total trading value exceeded 1.2 billion yuan at the end of 2022.

Chongqing-based Western China Data Exchange started its trial run in December 2021, with total trading value hitting 1 billion yuan in one year's time.

According to a report released by the SDE in late November, there were about 1.92 million data companies in China, which indicates that data are the major production object or material for these market entities.

But as Huang explained, most of these data companies are traditional information technology service providers. Companies with data transaction as their prime business are still a rarity.

Therefore, exchanges are of great importance in fully activating and utilizing key data generated every day. For cities undergoing digital transformation, such exchanges will also play an important role in driving economic growth by using data more efficiently and extensively, she added.

According to the guideline released by the State Council on Dec 19, efforts should be made to complete the infrastructure and build a multi-layered ecosystem for data. The development of data exchanges across the country should be coordinated. A set of nationwide unified data trading rules should be introduced to lower trading costs and better regulate such transactions.