The evening shift is in full swing at a shoe factory in Santai Town, Anxin County, Hebei. At six p.m., Wang Zhifu runs his thumb along the collar of a finished running shoe, gives a satisfied nod, and remarks, "We used to worry about excess inventory; now we worry about production capacity." He opens his storefront on the PDD platform, where backend data shows this original design of improved-construction running shoes is seeing explosive order volume.
Wang's "luck" stems from PDD's recent "New Quality Business Support Plan." His original mid-to-high-end running shoes underwent three months of development, refinement, and process improvement before successfully breaking through with a differentiated product. Many might attribute Wang's success to mere good fortune in catching a platform trend, but few have noticed the batch emergence of numerous new quality businesses in recent years, from kitchenware makers in Yongkang, Zhejiang to wedding dress producers in Lu'an, Anhui.
Behind this trend lies a critical, often invisible prerequisite: sifting through tens of thousands of products to identify merchants with innovative quality requires not only ensuring data authenticity but also possessing a robust data-filtering capability to separate the wheat from the chaff. The batch rise of these new quality businesses bears the mark of a transformative "data back-end."
On May 27, 2026, this "data back-end" began to take tangible shape. PDD Holdings Inc established PDD Information Technology Service (Xiong'an) Co., Ltd., with an initial cash injection of 5 billion yuan. The new company, focused on big data processing, digital operations and maintenance, and cloud platform services, has already launched a specialized recruitment drive. The company plans to directly hire around 1,000 positions in the first batch, with over 5,000 jobs expected throughout the entire recruitment cycle.
In an era where "data is an asset," this trillion-yuan platform is seeking a more suitable "processing base" for its most crucial "data back-end."
Establishing a Presence in Xiong'an: The Weight of Data Assets
Why choose Xiong'an for this "data back-end"? The answer lies in the national strategy for data assetization and Xiong'an's unique status. Since the release of the "Data Twenty Articles" at the end of 2022, data has been formally recognized as the fifth major factor of production, following land, labor, capital, and technology. Subsequent systemic institutional development has progressed rapidly: in 2024, the Ministry of Finance stipulated that data could be recognized as an "intangible asset" on balance sheets; by 2026, the National Data Bureau designated the annual theme as the "Year of Unleashing Data Element Value," with core tasks focused on four key words: availability, flow, effective use, and security.
This shift means tech companies must move from "storytelling" to "creating closed loops"—they must find ways to transform massive data flows into measurable, tradable, and value-appreciating assets. Xiong'an provides precisely the coordinates where institutional frameworks and infrastructure are fully aligned for this purpose.
As a national pilot zone for the innovative development of the digital economy, Xiong'an has embedded "data governance" into its urban infrastructure from the outset. The Xiong'an New Area aims to become the world's first digital twin city, achieving "synchronous planning, construction, and operation" of its physical and digital counterparts. More crucially, Xiong'an holds a comprehensive pass to the "trusted data space." In 2025, it was one of only a few regions in China selected for pilot programs across all three dimensions of "city, industry, and enterprise" in a list released by the National Data Bureau. Furthermore, Xiong'an's urban trusted data space technology service platform—the Shurongtong Co-creation Platform—went live in July 2025. By November 2025, it had attracted over 50 data merchants and listed more than 200 data products.
By establishing its "data back-end" in Xiong'an, PDD is embedding the most substantial aspect of the data economy—"data governance"—into Xiong'an's institutional coordinate system of "trusted data." This also lays a more solid foundation for the next commercial closed loop it aims to build.
Two Measuring Sticks: What Data Brings to Industry
How do data assets function within industries? In Zhaoxian County, known as the "Hometown of Chinese Snow Pears," local cultivation area has reached 250,000 mu. In the past, Zhaoxian snow pears would flood the market upon harvest. Sold in crates weighing over thirty jin and shipped out by truckloads for wholesale, after deducting freight and labor costs, profit per crate was merely a few yuan. After joining the platform in 2020, the sales logic changed.
Merchant Zhao Ning discovered the platform's increasingly stringent quality controls, which not only standardized weight and packaging but also directly incorporated "sugar content" into picking criteria. "We test sugar content before picking; pears with insufficient sugar aren't harvested." This process of transforming "sweetness" into measurable, recordable data marks the starting point of data assetization. It transforms "Zhaoxian Snow Pear" from a mere place-of-origin label into a trustworthy product standard.
A similar transformation is underway in Qingxian County, Cangzhou. With an annual output value of 3 billion yuan, it was once an OEM base for South Korean companies, representing the lowest-margin link in the global supply chain for major Korean cosmetics brands. Today, local brands like Huayang and Qinzhi are rising. These enterprises emphasize quality inspection; a single makeup brush undergoes 32 processes, with a core step called "reformulation" still irreplaceable by machines—workers must manually remove inverted bristles, or "the shape is right but it pricks the face." This has established a reputation for "Cangzhou quality" in the cosmetics industry.
After joining PDD in 2020, Huayang's daily orders surged to 10,000, with the platform accounting for half of its omnichannel sales. More important than sales volume are the "tags" fed back from the platform backend: which brush head types are selling well, which price points are popular, what specific, refined demands consumers have for certain brush types—this data is directly fed back to the enterprise, prompting production line adjustments and enhancing competitiveness through product innovation.
Whether it's "Zhaoxian Sugar Content" or "Cangzhou Cosmetics," the data assets provided by the platform offer industries just two measuring sticks. One measures demand, allowing factories to move away from designing products in a vacuum and instead customize based on genuine consumer feedback, minimizing inventory backlog. The other measures quality, transforming "Cangzhou quality" and "Zhaoxian sugar content" into verifiable, repeat-purchase-worthy credibility. The former saves hard cash in costs, while the latter accumulates the confidence for brand premium.
Within industry, data assets are never abstract code; they are the calibrations steering Chinese manufacturing from "cost advantage" towards "standard-based premium."
A Strategic Move: From Relocation to Distinctive Development
How does PDD's move into Xiong'an integrate with the new high ground for the digital economy that Xiong'an is building? Public information indicates the new Xiong'an company's first batch will offer around 1,000 positions, with over 5,000 high-quality job opportunities released throughout the cycle, covering key roles in customer service, review, operations, and maintenance. This will act as an accelerator for Xiong'an's positive cycle of "industry-university-talent."
It is understood that the first four universities relocating to Xiong'an have entered a phase of large-scale, accelerated campus construction, with opening expected in 2027. PDD's 5,000 direct-hire technical positions will serve as a magnet attracting high-end talent to settle. This not only addresses local employment but also, through industry-education integration, propels Xiong'an's universities from mere "relocation recipients" towards "distinctive development" serving the digital economy, transforming talent reserves from "blood transfusion" to "blood generation."
The 5-billion-yuan investment in a technical entity will further boost Xiong'an's efforts to establish a new high ground for the digital economy. The Xiong'an company's focus on big data processing, digital operations and maintenance, and cloud platform services will help solidify Xiong'an's foundation as a "national benchmark for digital governance" across multiple dimensions: digital economic development, industrial ecosystem agglomeration, and technological scenario iteration.
Furthermore, leveraging Xiong'an's digital technology base, PDD can better empower Hebei's traditional industries with digital assets. For industries like cosmetics in Qingxian, Cangzhou, and snow pears in Zhaoxian, PDD will use its platform's digital technology to empower these sectors, precisely addressing pain points in traditional enterprise transformation and upgrading, and assisting traditional manufacturing and agriculture-related industries in achieving intelligent upgrades, brand breakthroughs, and flexible production.
With 5,000 direct-hire jobs and a 5-billion-yuan cash injection, PDD is not simply building a customer service center. It is placing its vital "data back-end" within the urban construction of Xiong'an. These "warehouse quality inspectors" for data assets, with every审核驳回 (audit rejection) and every compliant product approval, are accumulating measurable, tradable, value-appreciating trusted data assets for the platform.
When this clean data flows back to the pear orchards of Zhaoxian, the brush factories of Qingxian, and the shoe enterprises of Santai, it will bring genuine factors of production to these industries. While empowering the intelligent growth of traditional industries, Xiong'an's digital economy will also realize its most anticipated vision: strong industry, thriving universities, a flourishing talent pool, and a vibrant city.
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