Shanghai is speeding up data factor market and ecosystem development, boosting national and international integration and cooperation, nurturing new business models and exploring data's value in secure and sustainable ways, speakers told an industry conference in Shanghai.

The Global Data Ecosystem Conference 2023, held over the weekend in the city, is an annually-held data transaction and business conference.

It attracted 10,000 participants from more than 1,000 domestic and national data companies, and top-level government officials, according to the the Shanghai Data Exchange (SDE), a major organizer.

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng announced the opening of the conference, while Liu Liehong, head of China's National Data Bureau gave a speech in the conference.

Data can lead the flow of materials, talented personnel, technology and capital, which optimizes business and economy development.

Data transaction can be used in smart manufacturing, trade circulation, transportation and logistics, financial services and health-care sectors.

In December of 2022, China released the "20 Measures" to boost data ecosystems, standardize data transaction process and develop data factor value.

Data has become a new kind of information infrastructure nationwide, as it fits in with China's national strategy for economy structure upgrade and digital economy development.

A batch of cooperation, facilities and reports were announced the conference.

A national data transaction chain debuted, covering data exchanges in Zhejiang, Shandong, Hunan Provinces, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and cities of Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Zhengzhou, Suzhou and Qingdao.

They will cooperate on standard drafting, digital chain co-promotion, service sharing and ecosystem interconnection.

Meanwhile, several international products listed on the Shanghai Data Exchange, a milestone step for the exchange to go international.

In total 10 data companies including Dun & Bradstreet, Euromonitor and Bloomberg cover regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.

Shanghai Data Exchange is also mulling an international data board construction to serve demands for global capital, technology, commerce and logistics.

On Sunday, the first batch of 11 services and products were authorized as Shanghai Data brands, which will help Shanghai to build brand awareness in data factor market nationwide and globally.

Also at the conference, Shanghai Data Exchange and Shanghai-based Intsig jointly debuted an industrial data innovation center, the first in its kind in the industry.

The "industrial data" covers supply chain, trade, bills, fulfillment and production data, reflecting business operations level and supply and demand relationships.

Industrial data is used for industry insight, development trend judgment, access to financial services and supply chain management.

It also provides an assessment basis for regulators to formulate and implement industry support policies, said Samuel Chen, Intsig's vice general manager.

Intsig, which is going to issue initial public offering in the Shanghai STAR Market, has huge volumes of enterprise data from 230 million companies and organizations.

Authorized data transaction volume has been developing rapidly in recent years.

Since its debut in 2021, transaction volume through the Shanghai Data Exchange has surpassed 100 million yuan (US$14.1 million) every month now, and will hit 1 billion yuan in 2023. It has served more than 2,000 data companies.

The conference will also be held on Tuesday (November 28) in Hong Kong as a parallel session, according to SDE.