MK sport China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 kicks off in Guiyang, Southwest China's Guizhou Province, on August 28, 2024. Photo: VCG" src="https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2024/2024-07-31/8af404df-2667-457f-8346-449e02dda22f.jpeg" />

The China International Big Data Industry Expo 2024 kicks off in Guiyang, Southwest China's Guizhou Province, on August 28, 2024. Photo: VCG

China has issued new guidelines to steer the high-quality development of its data annotation industry in the next two years, marking a critical step in fostering the high-quality growth of data annotation so as to bolster artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and enhance economic growth in the face of intense global competition, according to the website of the National Development and Reform Commission.

By 2027, the country's data annotation industry is expected to significantly advance in specialization, intelligence and innovation, with a substantial increase in industry scale and an average annual compound growth rate exceeding 20 percent, relevant authorities said on Monday.

The guidelines underscore China's dedication to innovating data-labeling technology, Wang Peng, an associate research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday.

Data annotation involves attributing, tagging and labeling of images, audio, text and video, so as to train machine-learning algorithms for better accuracy in understanding and classifying information.

The move is expected to allocate professional labeling resources to label data at high quality and on a large scale, improving data quality for training AI models, said Wang.

As an evolving high-tech sector, the data annotation industry is rapidly emerging as a vital component of the AI ecosystem, which involves the processing of data through screening, cleaning, classification, annotation, labeling and quality inspection, according to the guideline. Cultivating and expanding the data annotation industry is essential for allocating professional labeling resources to label data at high quality and on a large scale and promoting the innovative development of AI.

Vowing to build a sound industrial ecosystem to cultivate influential data annotation enterprises, the guidelines also outlined specific goals to promote the development of new models in data annotation and to beef up new competitive advantages.

"Efforts will be made to build a new pattern of resource aggregation, integrating upstream and downstream industrial chains, and regional coordinated development (in China)," read the document.

The measures will also help provide a new impetus to China's AI advancement as data annotation is crucial to the development of new AI applications - from intelligent chatbots to autonomous vehicles, according to Wang.

"As demand for data annotation or data labeling work ramps up, the data annotation industry faces a talent gap of nearly 30 million," Liu Renming, an industry insider who runs a company employing some 200 annotators, told the Global Times in a recent interview.

The market size of data annotation has grown significantly and is estimated to reach 20.43 billion yuan ($2.79 billion) by 2029, up from 4.33 billion yuan in 2021, according to the Huaon Industrial Research Institute.

To cultivate high-end talent in the industry, new measures will be implemented to provide professional education and training, to improve the professional skill levels of data annotators, and to establish a comprehensive talent pool for the new industry, according to the guidelines.

Global Times