Shanghai IP Administration accepts over 1,500 applications for data as IP in 2026, as China pushes the use of data as collateral for finance

Shanghai image Unsplash - credit Chris Nagahama

In the first half of 2026, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration processed a total of 2,245 applications for data product intellectual property registration, with 1,592 certificates granted, the SIPA announced this week.

In a press briefing, SIPA added that so far this year, both the number of applications to register data products as IP and the registrations granted in the Shanghai region were four times higher than for the same period in 2025.

The Chinese Government has been supporting various national and regional initiatives to explore the creation of a special kind of Intellectual Property right covering data since 2022. As explained in this article from China Briefing, “The country is rapidly developing a unique governance architecture to treat data not only as a strategic resource but also as a new category of asset with proprietary value. From policy experimentation in pilot zones to legislative efforts and judicial guidance, China is carving out a path that aims to define data as a form of IP, complete with rights, responsibilities, and commercial potential.”

The Shanghai region, which is recognised as one of the world’s top 10 economic hubs, has been leading the charge on the registration of data products as IP: indeed, as SIPA’s latest figures show, 30 % of application for registration come from other regions of China.

SIPA further detailed that data processing products accounted for roughly 47% of applications, while by industry sector artificial intelligence-related products made up 50% of total applications, with biomedicine accounting for 2%. Types of data products include text datasets for training and testing Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence models), algorithms, financial services, education and culture, transportation, and agricultural tech.

Excluding data products registered by major ecommerce and social media platforms or by securities firms, SIPA said registered data products have generated about 20.3 billion yuan ($3 billion) in cumulative economic value through licensing, transactions, and services.

Meanwhile, 24 enterprises have secured 547 million yuan in financing by using their data IP rights as collateral.

Led by Shanghai, various Chinese economic regions have been enabling bank lending using data IP registrations as collateral since 2024.

The China Briefing article referenced above explains that “China’s data exchange platforms are at the forefront of commercialization. In cities like Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guiyang, and Guangzhou, official exchanges serve as intermediaries that list, certify, and transact data products. These exchanges vet data sources, verify that sellers have the proper rights, and even perform due diligence on data quality.”

Data as collateral in other regions

Other countries are exploring the potential for data to be used as collateral for bank lending. Many jurisdictions already recognise organised or structured data as a form of IP – for example, the EU and the UK grant ‘sui generis’ (automatic on creation) database rights, or allow it to be protected by copyright (also automatic on creation). These may already be usable as collateral for finance in places such as the UK, the EU, and the US.

However, the Isle of Man is currently moving ahead with a more complex system, with the launch last year of its Data Asset Foundation (DAF) initiative, which allows for data to be valued and used as collateral for finance purposes, amongst other things.

The Isle of Man is a self-governing British Crown Dependency just off the coast of mainland Britain, which passes its own laws and which is a major global financial hub.

The DAF initiative, a partnership between Digital Isle of Man (an executive agency of the IoM Government’s Department for Enterprise) and international global association for data management, the EDM Association, involves the creation of a new type of legal structure under Manx law, a licensed Data Asset Foundation (DAF), made possible under the Isle of Man Foundations Act 2011.

Digital Isle of Man says DAFs will operate under a clear set of rules and roles, ensuring data is used responsibly, compliantly and for the purposes agreed by its contributors, while allowing the data to be monetised. DAFs will hold a company’s data so that it can be traded or used as collateral for financial purposes such as securing equity and debt funding, and included on the balance sheet, the agency suggests.