Data trading set to grow despite odds

Shanghai exchange eyes bright future as market in China finds foothold

Although data exchanges built nationwide are spurring trading in data, more efforts are needed to establish the basic trading mechanism and construct related infrastructure, experts said on Friday, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Shanghai Data Exchange.

Official trading on the SDE commenced on Nov 25 last year. By the end of this year, total trading value of various data products is expected to exceed 100 million yuan ($14 million), SDE officials said at the Global Data Ecosystem Conference, which was held on Friday to mark the exchange's anniversary.

Typically, data, in the context of trading on specialized exchanges, signify wide-ranging content — research material, analytics, insights and other kinds of actionable information or knowledge — on industries or subjects like finance, transportation, consumer behavior and public utilities.