How can RDA turn real-world data into "gold"?

Real Data Assets (RDA) is an innovative asset form that is reshaping the value pathway of data elements. The RDA paradigm proposed by the Shanghai Data Exchange in 2025 is not only an exploration of the transformation of data from resources to capital but also a practice of China promoting the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy under the "Real Number Fusion" strategy. This article will delve into the unique value of RDA by examining its origins, core mechanisms, development status, and related concept stocks, while also looking forward to its future potential.

The Origin of RDA: A New Paradigm for the Value of Chinese Data

In 2025, the Shanghai Data Exchange (hereinafter referred to as SDE) first proposed the RDA concept in "RDA: Exploration of the Valueization of Data Elements," led by General Manager Tang Qifeng and Deputy Dean of the Research Institute Lü Zhengying. This paradigm responds to the national strategy of "new quality productivity" and the marketization of data elements, aiming to deeply integrate physical assets with operational data through technologies such as blockchain and the Internet of Things, forming a new asset unit that is "verifiable, tradable, and financing-enabled." Unlike the global focus on the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), RDA emphasizes the authenticity verification and value enhancement of data, constructing a unique path of "real number integration."

Shangshu Institute positions RDA as the core engine for data monetization, encapsulating the full lifecycle data of physical assets into standardized, tradable digital assets through blockchain technology. In April 2025, Shangshu Institute officially launched the RDA paradigm at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, marking the transition of data from backend resources to frontend assets, with standardized paths for listing, registration, valuation, trading, and financing. In July of the same year, Shangshu Institute held a closed-door seminar titled "New Opportunities in Capital Markets: RDA," attracting participation from financial institutions such as Guotai Junan Securities, Haitong Securities, and CITIC Construction Investment Securities, to jointly explore the application prospects of RDA in the capital market, laying a solid foundation for subsequent project implementation.

The Core Mechanism of RDA: From Data to "Golden Assets"

The core of RDA lies in leveraging technology to transform data into credible and tradable assets. Its operational mechanism encompasses three stages: asset preparation, asset issuance, and asset trading. In the asset preparation stage, Data Assets Shell (DAS) encapsulates the operational data, revenue data, and other information of physical assets into standardized digital assets, incorporating proof of ownership, transaction agreements, and asset management models. Blockchain technology ensures data immutability, while the tripartite separation of powers architecture and judicial evidence channels further guarantee the authenticity of the data. In the asset issuance stage, data service providers and financial institutions complete the asset on-chain process and the issuance of financial instruments under regulatory review, ensuring that the data meets the requirements of "gold assets". In the asset trading stage, data assets circulate through domestic and foreign capital markets, creating value for enterprises.

RDA supports multiple financing channels, providing new sources of funding for enterprises:

• Credit Financing: The Digital Exchange has partnered with financial institutions to launch "Shuyi Loan", with a credit amount exceeding 100 million yuan in 2024, providing low-cost financing support for enterprises.
• Equity Financing: Using data assets to invest in shares, in exchange for company equity, to achieve capital operation.
• Securitization: Issuing securities supported by future cash flows through data asset ABS (Asset-Backed Securities), converting data into equity value.
• Global Fundraising: Connect with overseas capital markets to attract foreign investment to support the development of the domestic real economy.

The five major characteristics of RDA highlight its unique value: First, real number integration, which deeply binds data with physical assets to create a new asset form; Second, authentic transparency, where blockchain technology enables trustworthy traceability of assets throughout their entire lifecycle; Third, reliable returns, where smart contracts connect real operational returns to ensure transparent distribution; Fourth, value reconstruction, leveraging the low marginal cost and reusability of data to amplify asset value in conjunction with capital markets; Fifth, ecosystem synergy, which integrates data markets and capital markets to build an open-value ecosystem. These characteristics make RDA a bridge connecting the real economy with financial capital, providing enterprises with innovative financing pathways.

The Development of RDA: A Leap from Theory to Practice

Since its proposal in 2025, RDA has rapidly moved from theoretical conception to practical application, demonstrating strong development momentum. As a "testing ground" for the marketization of national data elements, Shanghai has become the core area for the implementation of RDA with policy support. The Shanghai Data Institute promotes the application of RDA in multiple fields through cross-border cooperation and project pilots. Here are several representative projects:

• Steel Trade RDA: Shanghai Steel Union (300226.SZ), as the leader in global commodity data pricing power, holds over 70% of the global market share in steel data. It issues the steel trade chain stablecoin "STEEL-CNY" through the Upstream Exchange platform. This project utilizes blockchain technology to encapsulate steel transaction data, supporting trade settlement and accounts receivable splitting, with commission costs reduced to 0.15% and annual commission income potential exceeding 1 billion yuan.
• Shipping Data RDA: COSCO Shipping Technology (002401.SZ) leverages its monopoly advantage in shipping data, with its "Ship Vision Treasure" platform covering over 5000 ports. After RDA transformation, data valuation increases threefold, supporting the "Freight Treasure CNY" stablecoin to achieve real-time RMB settlement for Southeast Asia freight, with an annual trading volume expected to reach 50 billion yuan.
• Data Asset ABS: On August 21, 2025, the first data asset-enabled ABS was successfully listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The Shanghai Data Exchange provided full-chain support, including compliance review, a scientifically rigorous valuation system, and cross-market linkage mechanisms, ensuring seamless connection from project preparation to listing, marking a breakthrough application of RDA in the financial market.
• On July 22, the unveiling ceremony of the "Equipment Operation and Intelligent Computing Hub" jointly established by Hainan Huatie and the Shanghai Data Exchange was held in Shanghai, announcing the launch of the world's first Equipment Operation RDA project, with an expected issuance scale of 1 billion yuan. This marks a Depth cooperation between the two parties in the circulation of data elements and the fields of equipment operation and intelligent computing services, jointly exploring new paths for data-driven industrial upgrading.

The following is a comprehensive sorting of RDA-related concept stocks, covering data element infrastructure and technical support, exchange platforms and blockchain technology, scenario applications and asset tokenization, as well as high-elasticity potential targets:

• Data Element Infrastructure and Technical Support:

• Tuos Thinking (300229.SZ): A leader in NLP technology, with over 60% market share in government and financial data governance. Its AI large model data orders grew by 180% year-on-year, providing high-quality data cleaning and annotation services for RDA.
• E-Hualu (300212.SZ): A data lake operator with a central enterprise background, storing over 100PB of government and medical data. The first domestic government data asset certificate has been implemented, and the scale of data asset inclusion in the balance sheet is expected to exceed 500 million yuan by 2025.
• Three-Dimensional Universe (301159.SZ): A certified service provider of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, AI-driven data automatic labeling efficiency improved by 80%, participated in the formulation of the RDA data packaging standards, supporting the pilot project for cross-border data assetization in the Yangtze River Delta.

• Exchange Platform and Blockchain Technology：

• Shanghai Steel Union (300226.SZ): A leader in global commodity data pricing power, issuing the "STEEL-CNY" stablecoin to promote the application of RDA in the commodity trading field, with annual commission income potential exceeding 1 billion yuan.
• Guangdian Yuntong (002152.SZ): The third largest shareholder of Guangzhou Data Exchange (holding 15%), digital renminbi hardware terminals cover over 2000 banks, the amount of gold tokenized certificates exceeds 20 tons, and the new energy asset tokenization project has been implemented.
• Sifang Jingchuang (300468.SZ): A blockchain cross-border payment technology provider, supporting RDA cross-border circulation, with a transaction processing speed of up to 100,000 TPS, providing technical support for the globalization of data assets.

• Scenario Application and Asset Tokenization:

• COSCO SHIPPING Technology (002401.SZ): Valuation increased threefold after the shipping data is RDA-ized, the "Freight Treasure CNY" stablecoin supports cross-border real-time settlement, with an expected annual trading volume of 50 billion yuan.
• Xiexin Nengke (002015.SZ): A leader in the assetization of photovoltaic and energy storage data, IDC and charging pile data on-chain, the charging revenue rights tokenization project has been implemented, reducing financing costs by 2-3 percentage points.
• Visual China (000681.SZ): Owns the largest visual copyright library in the world (270 million images), NFTization of rights confirmation enhances liquidity, copyright trading revenue-sharing model has a gross margin of over 70%, and is actively exploring a visual data RDA revenue-sharing mechanism.
• Century Hengtong (301428.SZ): Focus on data services, participating in RDA-related data assetization pilot, providing data processing and exchange support.

• High Elasticity Potential Assets：

• Cloud Competition Intelligent Connection (600602.SH): Achieved RDA transformation of Shanghai State-owned Assets Computing Power Leasing, blockchain technology enables real-time monitoring of computing power resources, improving the efficiency of computing power asset on-chain by 50%, with a revaluation space of up to 300%.
• Zhongxin Saike (002912.SZ): Data collection coverage exceeds 80% (ETC and traffic flow), RDA data source supply capacity is outstanding, and the potential increase after breaking through the annual line is over 50%.
• Shanghai Material Trade (600822.SH): Its data products from the Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Trading Center have been registered and listed on the Shushuo Exchange, achieving four consecutive trading limits. However, the total revenue for 2024 is 4.517 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 42.59%. The contribution from data asset trading is less than 1%, and the dynamic price-to-earnings ratio has reached as high as 126.57 times, far exceeding the industry average (the average for trading companies and industrial product distributors is 19.30 times), reflecting that the market's enthusiasm is more driven by the expectation of policy dividends.

The enthusiasm of the capital market for RDA reflects its potential, but it also comes with the risk of overvaluation. For example, the high price-to-earnings ratio of Shanghai Wumao indicates that the market's pursuit of RDA is more based on policy dividends rather than fundamental support. The international exploration of RDA is also progressing steadily. The international zone of the Shanghai Data Exchange has become a key platform for cross-border data exchange, attracting more than 30 international data providers and listing nearly 200 data products. This zone has pioneered the "international data brokerage model," introducing resources such as esports data analysis from Stream Hatchet and global supply chain intelligence from Speeda, while also helping local companies comply with data export regulations. By collaborating with Amazon Web Services, Neudata, and others, a solid architecture of "technical interface + data provider network" has been formed, supporting seamless data transmission and helping RDA play a greater role in the global data assetization.

The Future of RDA: Opportunities and Challenges Coexist

RDA, as an important engine for data monetization, provides a new path for financing physical assets. However, its development still faces several challenges. Firstly, the trading scale of RDA is relatively small, and the business model has not yet fully matured, being highly reliant on policy promotion and ecological collaboration. For example, the RDA business of Shanghai Wumao is limited by external ecology, making it difficult to significantly increase revenue in the short term. Secondly, data ownership confirmation, standardization, and pricing mechanisms still need improvement, and cross-border circulation needs to balance domestic and foreign regulatory requirements. In addition, the implementation of RDA projects requires cross-industry collaboration, involving multi-party coordination in technology, compliance, and market, which increases the complexity of implementation.

Nevertheless, the future potential of RDA cannot be ignored. With the continuous improvement of the real number integration system, RDA is expected to make breakthroughs in the following areas:

• Industry Expansion: Expanding from bulk commodities and shipping to smart manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and other fields, covering more scenarios in the real economy.
• Financial Innovation: Explore more data asset ABS, equity financing, and other models to unlock data value and broaden corporate financing channels.
• International Development: Promote the global circulation of RDA by connecting with international financial markets, attracting more foreign investment support for domestic enterprises.

Conclusion

RDA, as an innovative practice for the marketization of data elements in China, is not only an exploration of the path to data valuation but also a profound response to the integration of the real economy and the digital economy. From the theoretical proposal in 2025 to the current project implementation, RDA transforms real data into "gold assets" through trustworthy technologies such as blockchain, providing enterprises with new financing channels. RDA concept stocks have become the focus of capital markets due to their layout in data sources, technology services, and exchange platforms. Although facing challenges such as small transaction scale and immature business models, RDA is gradually releasing its potential under the support of policies and technological advancements. In the future, RDA is expected to become an important force in the data-driven economic transformation, contributing Chinese wisdom to the global wave of asset digitization and injecting strong momentum into the development of new productive forces.