Data annotation-related scenarios and service products have emerged as a standout feature at this year's China International Big Data Industry Expo in Guiyang City of southwest China's Guizhou Province Province.
On the expo floor, robotics companies demonstrated how robots collect and label data, attracting many visitors.
"We label massive amounts of data and then use them to train large models. When these large models are fed with 'nutritious food', they can become smarter, allowing artificial intelligence to reach new heights," said Tan Poh Hwee, president of the Asia Academy of Digital Economics, a Singapore-based non-profit organization.
As a critical pillar supporting AI development, the data annotation industry is rapidly expanding its footprint as artificial intelligence and machine learning models demand massive amounts of high-quality labeled data.
In Huishui County of the province, lightweight video capture devices are recording real-world work movements in factories and other settings, effectively serving as "enlightenment teachers" for robots. Meanwhile, in the Gui'an New Area in the province, technicians are operating dozens of robots equipped with multiple sensors to record and annotate video data from logistics and transportation scenarios.
"To enable our data collection to enter some industrial and commercial scenarios is vital for training robots to develop a general-purpose, versatile brain," explained Yao Maoqing, head of the embodied intelligence business system at a robotics manufacturing firm.
Guizhou has identified data collection and annotation as a new growth driver and a priority industry for its digital economy development. The province has already attracted 135 data collection and annotation companies, employing more than 16,000 people.
"Within three years, we aim to build a high-quality dataset with a duration of one million hours to serve embodied intelligence enterprises across the country and even the world," said Liu Nijun, deputy general-manager of the data division at Guizhou Big Data Group.
Data annotation is the action of adding meaningful and informative tags to a dataset, making it easier for machine learning algorithms to understand and process the data.
The three-day expo concluded on Sunday, showcasing cutting-edge achievements and scenario-based applications across five key areas: computing infrastructure, data supply, model-driven development, data security, and intelligent experience.
Data annotation industry shines at 2026 Big Data Expo
