Shanghai Declaration Unveiled to Foster Open Scientific Data Sharing in AI Era

A declaration on open and shared scientific data in the era of artificial intelligence was launched on September 14 at the Scientific Data Forum of the 2026 Pujiang Innovation Forum in Shanghai.

The Shanghai Declaration calls on research institutions, funders, enterprises and policymakers worldwide to jointly build an open, inclusive, secure and collaborative global scientific data governance ecosystem. It outlines eight action directions, including developing AI-ready scientific data resources, establishing open-sharing standards, improving lifecycle compliance governance, promoting classified sharing, building distributed interconnected digital infrastructure, coordinating cross-border data flows, and ensuring equitable access to scientific data.

Yang Jinlong, president of Tongji University and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said at the forum that scientific research is entering a new stage driven by data intelligence, and the closed loop of data collection, governance, sharing and reuse has become a key pillar of AI for Science productivity. He noted the challenges of data silos and called for better data connectivity and secure data circulation.

On the same day, the Shanghai Scientific Data Management and Sharing Platform was officially launched. As of September 10, the platform had collected more than 32TB of data from over 1,550 scientific projects, covering 6,255 datasets across 52 disciplines.

In addition, six national-level scientific data centers signed cooperation agreements with 14 overseas universities, research institutions and international organizations from countries including the UK, Russia, Canada and Pakistan to facilitate cross-border data sharing and collaboration.