China is embarking on a new era in the big-data sector, as the country gears up to seek breakthroughs in the research and application of big-data distribution and exchange.

China is expected to account for more than 100 billion yuan ($14.47 billion) in the big-data distribution and exchange market by 2020, said Han Han, director of the Engineering Research Center for Big Data Circulation Compliance Assessment. This will come with the support of the National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data Distribution and Exchange Technologies.

Led by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the research center is among the 13 such centers set up by the National Engineering Laboratory for Big Data Distribution and Exchange Technologies.

“Currently there’s more cooperation instead of fierce competition in the emerging big-data industry, “Han said: “Grasping that opportunity, the national lab and our research center will introduce big-data circulation standards and encourage enterprises to run big-data business according to the standards. Thus, we will embrace a better competition environment in the future.”

In 2016, China’s core industry in the big-data sector attained a market value of 16.8 billion yuan, a 45 percent increase from 2015, according to a recent survey by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

Han said to China Daily that the wide application of big-data technology also brought new challenges for the protection of personal data, collection and circulation.

“For example, we will provide implementation notes for signing contracts for enterprises. And we will provide oversight during the process. In terms of user license agreements, we will collect and compile other research centers’ research into the program.”

To date, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology has issued a series of big-data circulation standards covering credit checking, risk control and data exchange, and a standard system is projected to be launched in two years.

According to Han, the research center will also examine policy, to help both the central government and local government to set up distribution and exchange standards in big data.

Yang Shanlin, director of the national lab, said the key lies in the application of big data.

“Big data is the new factor of production and a strategic resource of the country. The application of big data will boost the development of related technologies and industries.”

According to a plan prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China is expected to increase sales of its big data industry to 1 trillion yuan by 2020, up from an estimated 280 billion yuan in 2015.

The expected rapid increase also appears to show that the big-data sector’s growth in China may be so fast as to worry regulators, as the latter may be unable or ill-equipped to regulate it well.

“Now the challenge is how to manage the data and better employ it,” Yang said. “Appropriate regulations and policies will enable a better environment and ultimately boost the development of the big data.”