China is moving to leverage data as a core strategic asset, aiming to build industry-specific data sets to power its next-generation artificial intelligence models, as developers worldwide grapple with a looming data drought.

On Monday, the country’s data authority unveiled a sweeping nationwide plan to boost the supply of high-quality AI training data, underscoring Beijing’s resolve to secure a leading position in the global AI competition.

The draft plan, published online by the National Data Administration, outlines a broad road map to expand the supply, circulation and commercialisation of industry-specific data sets. The initiative is designed to anchor Beijing’s AI Plus strategy – a top-down mandate to weave AI into the industrial fabric of the world’s second-largest economy.

By 2028, the agency aimed to field an expansive ecosystem of validated data sets covering bedrock sectors including scientific research, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, transport, finance, healthcare, education and e-commerce.

Cutting-edge frontiers like embodied AI, autonomous driving, low-altitude aviation and biomanufacturing will also be covered.

The plan called for an expansion into multimodal data – spanning text, code, images, audio and video – to train advanced systems capable of complex reasoning, agentic behaviour and controlling intelligent robots.