China incorporates big data to track innovation, entrepreneurship

China is adding new instruments to its economic dashboard that will incorporate big data to help better track innovation and entrepreneurship in the new economy.

Three indicators tracking innovation, entrepreneurship and the new economy are rolling out this year to gauge output in those fast-moving, category-bending and hard-to-measure sectors. All three will be distilled partly from massive hauls of big data from the internet.

While official statisticians are good at measuring the old drivers like factory output or coal production, it’s much tougher for smaller businesses, which make up one of the most dynamic parts of the world’s second-largest economy. It’s also trickier to assess services, which accounted for more than half of output last year for the first time and are growing at a faster pace than sectors like manufacturing or agriculture.

Here’s what’s coming:

- An innovation and entrepreneurship index developed by the State Information Centre, a think tank administered by the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s top economic planner;