Two years ago, the city of Deyang in Sichuan Province made headlines by issuing China's first invoice for data elements transactions. This bold move has positioned Deyang as a pioneer in the burgeoning data factors industry in the nation. Interestingly, Deyang began its journey into the realm of data industry development prior to the introduction of the national policies concerning data elements, demonstrating a proactive approach. Deyang was the first city at the prefectural level in China to establish foundational systems for data factors and even created the country’s first dedicated data factor industrial park.

In July 2021, Deyang launched its data governance project, which culminated in November of the same year with the establishment of a leadership group headed by Deyang’s top officials to steer the initiative. Zhang Qiang, the General Manager of Deyang Guoke Digital Industry Development Group Co., Ltd., shared with reporters from China Business News that Deyang's data factor circulation and trading platform began its trial operations in 2021, featuring the first batch of data elements alongside online services that bridged government, finance, and industry.

Given Deyang's early engagement in the data factor market, one may wonder what unique advantages it possesses in leveraging this burgeoning trillion-yuan market to fuel regional economic growth.

The city has made significant strides in constructing application scenarios that facilitate data interactions. According to Shiyanjie, the head of the data trading department at Deyang Data Trading Co., the local government has seen an influx of other municipalities and enterprises eager to learn from Deyang’s progress, a testament to its early achievements in data industry development. Deyang has successfully established a robust system integrating institutional, technological, and market elements that work together to promote efficient data integration, circulation, and large-scale applications, positioning data as a key driver of urban economic growth.

But what precisely is a data factor? How does a data factor generate value? Are there real-world examples that illustrate its potential? Liang Chaojie, Chief Strategy Officer of Shujiao Data Brokerage Firm, broke it down. He explained that data factors refer to electronically existing data resources that participate in production and business activities through computation and possess significant value, positioning them alongside traditional factors such as labor and capital within economic theory. Data factors create diverse value increments through multi-scenario applications and multi-entity repurposing, consistently improving data quality and expanded economic growth beyond traditional resource constraints.

Liang further emphasized that data must be contextualized within application scenarios to realize its value, providing a necessary condition for qualifying as a data factor. In Deyang, multiple data application scenarios have emerged, showcasing the value derived from data exchange.

For instance, Sichuan Yichabianzhiji Information Technology Co., Ltd., known informally as Yichabianzhiji, is a data application platform initiated with local support. The company has harnessed data from various sectors such as civil affairs, education, and justice, leveraging technologies like blockchain and large models to create a smart matchmaking application scenario.

According to its founder, Zhong Tao, China now has over 240 million single individuals. The fast-paced urban lifestyle often leaves young people too bogged down with work and life to nurture romantic relationships. While matchmaking institutions provide platforms for relationships, challenges such as verifying the authenticity of information and matching efficiency remain prevalent. By sourcing genuine data components regarding individuals’ educational backgrounds, marital status, legal history, and more through formal data trading channels, Yichabianzhiji aims to create accurate relationship portraits, aligning online users’ representations with their real-life counterparts. This digital mechanism aims to resolve traditional verification issues by establishing a solid foundation for user information and cutting down on cases of romantic fraud.

Since launching a pilot program with local matchmaking institutions, Yichabianzhiji has effectively boosted the ratings of offline stores and mini-programs, increased matchmaking success rates by 20%, and reduced matching times significantly. Besides this example, Deyang has also introduced a regulatory application scenario for single-purpose prepaid consumption. With authorization from merchants and relevant departments, data resources from banking, market supervision, insurance, and judicial sectors integrate via data elements to create a credit evaluation model for the prepaid consumption industry, preserving the safety of consumer funds while dynamically adjusting oversight ratios.

This innovative approach has efficiently monitored the business status of individual merchants, addressing issues such as misappropriation of prepaid funds and complications regarding refunds and claims, thus promoting sustainable development in prepaid consumption.

Emphasizing the uniqueness of the “Deyang Model,” Deyang officials recognize that compared to first-tier cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, Deyang lacks certain geographical advantages. Nonetheless, its early efforts in the data factor industry have laid a solid foundation. According to representatives from Deyang’s Data Bureau, Deyang has structured a comprehensive foundational system for its data factor market.

In 2022, Deyang took the lead in releasing its “1+4+N” foundational system framework among prefectural-level cities. This framework consists of an overarching action plan supported by a robust organizational structure, developmental cultivation, circulation and trading protocols, and regulatory measures. Moreover, a management operation system has been established, which includes a governing body, multiple business centers specializing in data operations, and a dedicated industrial park.

One of the key factors contributing to Deyang’s national leadership in the data factor industry is strong organizational support, as noted by Zhang Qiang. To foster the growth of the data factor industry, Deyang formed a leadership group for Digital Deyang and a specialized task force for the market-based allocation of data factors, which has guided top-level designs and construction efforts in this arena.

This solid organizational support has allowed Deyang to pioneer the use of data components as primary exchange items and to tackle the complexities of standardizing large-scale data circulation. Following a principle that data should remain within predefined domains while ensuring usability, they have offered measurable, assessable, and tradable data products in various forms, including models and verification services, to the public.

Moreover, Deyang has actively explored pathways across different domains, including resources, systems, technology, value, and applications, striving to create a market system for data factor circulation and trading, with a core emphasis on data empowerment and value realization. The city is collecting data resources from governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals, establishing a comprehensive database of structured data across various key areas.

Deyang’s strong foundation serves as a springboard for dynamic growth within the data factor market. The city has been at the forefront nationally in proposing the concept of data components and creating industry standards, transforming raw data into usable elements through various technologies.

Currently, Deyang is concentrating its efforts on areas such as finance, health, energy, and logistics by synthesizing administrative, public, and societal data to produce valuable service offerings. To date, it has established over fifty application scenarios, recorded seventy-two data transactions totaling approximately 3.4 billion yuan, with derivative product market transactions exceeding 8 billion yuan.

Furthermore, Deyang has launched its data asset registration platform, managing the complete process of data asset registration, pricing, and collateral financing. These efforts have successfully yielded a nationwide first—a data-based collateral financing approach—enabling businesses to secure loans up to 5 million yuan based on their data assets.

As highlighted, the value of data thrives through circulation and use. The collaboration between Deyang and the Sichuan Provincial Big Data Center has established the Sichuan Data Factor Industrial Park, hosting 210 data companies, of which a staggering 85% are from outside Deyang. External data resources constitute 83.7% of those traded in the market, reflecting the city's strategy of becoming a data processing and operational hub.

With its initiatives, Deyang is not just establishing itself as a player in the national and international data markets but is also offering a blueprint for integrating local data enterprises into a unified national market.