During the annual meeting of China's National People's Congress (NPC) and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's state council presented a government overhaul proposal, which may help concentrate the communist party's control over technology development amid the US sanctions.
The state council of China published a press release on Xinhua saying that the state council unveiled a government restructuring proposal, expected to be submitted to and approved by the NPC by March 10, in which it was proposed to restructure the Ministry of Science and Technology and establish a National Data Bureau (temporary translation).
According to the press release, China said amid the international technological competition and foreign containment of its technological development, China has to mobilize and allocate resources to advance core technologies and reach technological self-sufficiency by restructuring the Ministry of Science and Technology.
As for the National Data Bureau, according to China's state council, data plays a fundamental role in building a modern economic system and national competitiveness, and China has to enforce the regulation of data and integrate data resources and utilization across the country.
According to Bloomberg, expanding the Ministry of Science and Technology's role will help China orchestrate nationwide initiatives and formulate strategic policies as the country plans to leverage the 'whole nation system' to fend off foreign containment.
Chinese media Chinastarmarket quoted industry sources saying that by forming the National Data Bureau, China increases the overseeing power, helping the industry with data cleaning, storage, and labeling, thus boosting the big data and AI industry.
