Building and operating National Data Infrastructure is a key move for further strengthening the foundations of Digital China’s development. In practice, this requires carefully coordinating several important relationships, including top-level design and practical experimentation, high-quality supply and diverse scenario-based demand, technological development and infrastructure construction, and infrastructure deployment and operational optimization, in order to advance the construction of Digital China while improving its quality and effectiveness. 建设和运营国家数据基础设施是进一步夯实数字中国发展基础的关键落子。在实践中，需要统筹好顶层设计与实践探索、高质量供给与多场景需求、技术发展与基础设施建设、建设布局与运营优化等重要关系，推动数字中国建设稳中提质。
Liu Liehong (刘烈宏), “Using Advanced Data Infrastructure to Support the Construction of Digital China” (以高水平数据基础设施助力数字中国建设), Qiushi, March 01, 2026
Data is no longer just information: it is the fifth factor of production. Chinese policymakers increasingly view the ability to organize, mobilize, and govern national data resources as a key determinant of technological leadership and economic power. Beijing is not simply storing data; it is building the infrastructure to mobilize it for National Rejuvenation.
In a recent article in Qiushi, the Party’s flagship theoretical journal, National Data Administration (NDA) Director Liu Liehong explains why the 15th Five-Year Plan prioritizes the construction of National Data Infrastructure as a core pillar of the Digital China strategy. The article offers a rare, authoritative window into Beijing’s thinking on the subject.
As described by Director Liu, National Data Infrastructure is the system architecture that allows data to circulate securely, be developed and utilized at scale, and be governed within trusted frameworks. In the Digital China strategy, it forms the foundation for transforming data into a new factor of production and a driver of economic competitiveness.
For Chinese policymakers, the digital future will not be won simply through advances in artificial intelligence, semiconductors, or digital platforms. It will be decided by countries capable of constructing national data systems that integrate data circulation (i.e. National Data Infrastructure), computing power (i.e. National Unified Computing Power Network), and governance frameworks.
Liu’s article reflects a critical shift in Beijing’s strategic framing. Data is no longer treated as a mere byproduct of digital technologies or a resource generated by online platforms. It has been elevated to the central production factor of the digital age, one capable of reshaping economic productivity, technological innovation, and national power.
Taken together, Liu’s arguments reveal how China’s leadership views the ability to organize, mobilize, and govern national data resources as a decisive strategic capability. His article illuminates Beijing’s understanding of the relationship between National Data Infrastructure, computing power infrastructure, digital governance, and geopolitical competition in the emerging digital era.
The bottom line is unambiguous: Beijing believes it is building the national data system that will define the digital age.
This analysis is based on Liu Liehong’s recent essay in Qiushi: “Using Advanced Data Infrastructure to Support the Construction of Digital China.” The essay examines China’s attempt to construct a national digital architecture capable of supporting economic transformation, technological innovation, and increasingly sophisticated forms of governance.
The Infrastructure of Power
The Chinese Communist Party increasingly believes that data will determine the balance of power in the digital age. In Beijing’s view, the next phase of global competition will center on the capacity to organize, mobilize, and govern data at national scale. It is within this context that the Digital China strategy must be understood.
At its core, Digital China represents an effort to construct National Data Infrastructure capable of supporting economic transformation, technological innovation, and governance modernization. This strategic vision is increasingly reflected in institutional design. In 2023, Beijing created the National Data Administration to coordinate the development, governance, and utilization of data resources across China’s economy, government, and society.
As director of the new administration, Liu Liehong now sits at the center of China’s emerging National Data Infrastructure. His article in Qiushi offers an unusually clear statement of how Beijing understands the role of data infrastructure in the next phase of the Digital China strategy and why it matters beyond China’s borders.
Five Strategic Signals in Liu Liehong’s Article
Liu’s article highlights five elements of Beijing’s evolving strategic thinking about data:
China has elevated data to the core strategic resource of the digital era. Chinese policymakers increasingly view data as the production factor that will shape technological innovation, economic productivity, and national power.
National Data Infrastructure has emerged as a new category of national infrastructure. Just as railways structured industrial development and electricity networks powered modern economies, National Data Infrastructure is now being built as the foundational layer of China’s national digital transformation.
Beijing is constructing a national system for data circulation. China is developing governance frameworks, data exchanges, and emerging data markets designed to enable large-scale data flows across industries and regions.
National Data Infrastructure and the National Unified Computing Power Network are being integrated into a national data system. The expansion of national computing networks reflects an effort to combine massive data resources with large-scale computing capacity. Analytically, this integration can be understood as the emergence of a layered national digital architecture, in which data infrastructure and computing power infrastructure operate as distinct but interdependent system layers.
The ultimate objective is the construction of Smart Society. These systems are intended to support Smart Cities, intelligent industries, and data-driven governance systems that together form the operational layer of Digital China.
Data as the Strategic Resource of the Digital Age
One of the most striking elements of Liu’s article is the explicit framing of data as a national strategic resource. In the digital economy, data has joined land, labor, capital, and technology as a fundamental factor of production.
Unlike traditional resources, data possesses distinctive characteristics. It can be replicated at near-zero cost, combined across sectors, and used to generate entirely new forms of economic and technological value. Artificial intelligence systems require massive training datasets, industrial automation relies on continuous data flows, and digital platforms derive value from the information they collect and process.
As a result, Chinese policymakers increasingly view the ability to organize, mobilize, and govern national data resources as a key determinant of technological leadership and economic power. This perspective explains why data governance has rapidly moved from a technical policy issue to a central component of China’s national development strategy.
National Data Infrastructure as a New Category of National Infrastructure
Liu’s article also elevates National Data Infrastructure to the level of traditional national infrastructure. Historically, major phases of economic development have been shaped by large-scale infrastructure systems. Railways enabled industrial expansion, electricity networks powered modern manufacturing, and telecommunications networks supported the information age.
In Liu’s framing, National Data Infrastructure represents the next stage in this historical progression. It includes the integrated systems that allow data to be collected, transmitted, stored, processed, and utilized across the economy. National Data Infrastructure is now treated as a category of New Type Infrastructure.
These systems include data collection networks, storage platforms, transmission systems, computing infrastructure, governance frameworks, and security mechanisms. Together they form the operating environment of the digital economy, enabling data resources to circulate and generate value across sectors.
Building a National Data Circulation System
Another central theme in Liu’s article is the importance of data circulation. The value of data does not lie solely in its accumulation. Instead, it emerges when datasets can move efficiently between organizations, industries, and regions, allowing different actors to combine information and generate new insights.
China is attempting to build a national system that enables secure and regulated data flows across the economy. This effort includes the development of data exchanges, standardized governance frameworks, and emerging data markets.
These initiatives aim to transform data into a functioning factor of production within China’s socialist market economy, while ensuring that critical data resources remain subject to state oversight.
Integrating Data Infrastructure and Computing Power
Liu also emphasizes the national integration of data infrastructure (i.e. National Data Infrastructure) with computing power infrastructure (i.e. National Unified Computing Power Network), both now specified forms of New Type Infrastructure. Large-scale datasets generate value only when sufficient computational capacity exists to analyze them.
China has launched major initiatives to expand national computing power capabilities. Integrated computing networks link data centers across different regions, creating a unified system capable of allocating computational resources dynamically.
Within this architecture, data provides the raw informational resource while computing power transforms that data into usable intelligence. This integration supports the development of artificial intelligence systems, large-scale analytics, and digitalized industrial production.
From Infrastructure to Smart Society
The ultimate objective of these efforts lies beyond infrastructure itself. In the Party’s vision, the combination of data infrastructure and computing power will enable the emergence of Smart Society.
Smart Cities represent the most visible manifestation of this transformation. Urban environments increasingly function as platforms where data from transportation systems, public services, industry, and citizens can be integrated into unified digital management systems.
More broadly, Smart Society reflects a vision in which data-driven systems coordinate complex economic and social processes. Industrial production, public administration, and everyday life become increasingly integrated through digital platforms capable of managing massive flows of information.
Liu’s article also reveals a deeper architecture underlying the Digital China strategy. The system can be understood as a three-layer structure:
- Data infrastructure: where national data resources are generated, organized, and governed;
- Computing power infrastructure: which transforms those data resources into intelligence;
- Smart systems: where digital technologies are applied across economic and social environments.
Together these layers form what could be described as a national digital operating system, capable of coordinating economic activity, governance systems, and technological innovation at national scale.
Strategic Implications: Digital China and the Emerging Global Data Order
Liu’s emphasis on data circulation and governance frameworks also hints at a broader ambition. Today the world lacks a universally accepted model for governing data in the digital age. The United States tends toward market-driven data ecosystems dominated by private platforms, while the European Union emphasizes privacy regulation and data protection.
China is developing a different model: a state-coordinated national data system that combines market mechanisms with centralized governance. If this model proves capable of delivering economic growth, technological innovation, and governance efficiency, it could influence how other countries design their own digital systems. In this sense, the development of China’s national data architecture may contribute to shaping the emerging global architecture of data governance.
The strategic implications extend beyond China itself. In the digital age, competition between major powers may increasingly center not only on individual technologies, but on the systems capable of organizing and governing data at national scale. Countries that succeed in constructing integrated national data infrastructures (combining data resources, computing power, and governance frameworks) may gain decisive advantages in technological innovation, economic productivity, and digital governance.
Liu Liehong’s essay reflects a deeper shift in how Beijing understands the digital revolution. The central question is no longer simply who will lead in individual technologies such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, or telecommunications networks. Increasingly, Chinese policymakers believe the digital age will be decided by the systems capable of organizing and mobilizing data at national scale.
Within the Digital China strategy, advanced data infrastructure forms the foundation of those systems. By integrating data resources, computing power networks, and digital governance platforms, China is attempting to construct a national digital architecture capable of supporting economic transformation, technological innovation, and increasingly sophisticated forms of governance.
From Beijing’s perspective, the construction of Digital China represents more than economic modernization. It is an effort to build the institutional and technological foundations of digital power in the twenty-first century. Countries that succeed in building such systems may hold decisive advantages in the emerging digital order.