China’s Data Economy Reaches 6.78 Trillion Yuan Amid AI Expansion

Manama: China's data industry continued to expand rapidly in 2025, supporting the development of the fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) sector, according to official data.According to Bahrain News Agency, the scale of China's data industry reached 6.78 trillion yuan (about 1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, marking a 15.7 percent increase year on year. These figures were released at the opening of the 2026 China International Big Data Industry Expo.Data-related software products, which include AI application software, and data resource products, such as token services, had a combined output value of 4.99 trillion yuan. This accounted for 73.6 percent of the industry's total output.As of this month, China has built more than 126,000 high-quality datasets nationwide, with a total volume exceeding 1,815 petabytes. This represents an increase of more than 89 percent since March."AI development is heavily driven by data," said Liu Liehong, head of China's National Data Bureau. He emphasized the impor tance of advancing the construction and application of high-quality datasets in tandem with AI progress.By late July 2026, Guizhou had become home to 50 key data centers, boasting a total computing capacity of 176.57 EFLOPS. Nearly 98.4 percent of this capacity was dedicated specifically to AI-related computing.