Episode Details

Data has become one of the most important inputs in the modern economy, especially as access to high-quality information increasingly shapes the global race to develop artificial intelligence.

• But while US policymakers tend to view data primarily through a national security lens, Beijing is pursuing a much broader strategy aimed at unlocking data’s economic value.

On this week’s Trivium China Podcast, host Andrew Polk is joined by Trivium’s Head of Tech Policy Research Kendra Schaefer to explore why China has formally designated data as a “factor of production” – and how that idea is reshaping the country’s technology and economic policies.

The two discuss:

• Why low-cost Chinese open-source AI models are increasingly attractive to Western companies
• How restricting access to those models could undermine US competitiveness
• What Beijing means when it describes data as the economy’s fifth factor of production
• China’s efforts to make data easier to find, price, trade, and use as collateral
• Why Beijing views data security rules as necessary guardrails for a functioning data market
• How China’s approach could strengthen its AI ecosystem by increasing the supply of high-quality data

Andrew and Kendra also examine the absence of a coherent, pro-growth US data strategy – and why Washington’s overwhelming focus on security risks may be leaving significant economic gains on the table.

Overall, the discussion reveals that China’s seemingly disparate data policies are part of a much larger project: building the infrastructure needed to turn data into a more productive and widely traded economic asset.