BBD spreads data expertise to UK

A fast-growing Chinese big-data firm is expanding into the UK with the ambitious goal of revolutionizing financial data analytics around the world.

The company, BBD, hopes to help clients to increasingly use real-time big data for investment decisions.

The startup from Chengdu in Sichuan province has grown fast enough in three years to serve big names like Guoking Securities, Shenzhen Stock Exchange and KPMG in China. The company is now preparing for the launch of a research and development center at the University of Cambridge after opening a London office in May.

Helen Wang, the company's CEO in Britain, says the R&D center in Cambridge will enable the firm to utilize the university's research strength in crowdfunding, and work with Cambridge experts to extend big data's application to biodata.

"We expect that by working with a leading research institute in crowdfunding, BBD can bring contributions to China's peer-to-peer industry, which is increasingly in need of regulation and supervision," Wang says.

Big data has taken off in recent years due to the global internet connectivity boom. BBD is perhaps best known in China for its China new economy index, which uses the power of data to help China's government and investors discover new sectors that are rapidly growing within the Chinese economy.

Using the same methods employed in the China new economy index, BBD is using its presence in Britain to develop an international index, called BBD OBOR index. It tracks the growth of new economic sectors in all the countries along the Belt and Road Initiative. OBOR - for One Belt, One Road - is another name for the initiative, which is focused on investing in infrastructure that connects Asia and Europe.

Alan Barrell, entrepreneur in residence at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, says: "The development of new algorithms such as BBD's new economy index will result in a wider application of smart big-data systems for stock analysis by investors considering investment in newer companies with innovative online systems and new technology."

Barrell calls the creation of such a real-time, big-data index particularly helpful for the UK, which has about 80 percent of its GDP and employment rooted in service sectors, classified as new economy sectors, which need to be measured by innovative matrices.

BBD's activities in the UK should cause no data security concerns, he says. "BBD's approach will be open and transparent and the methodology employed in the new economy index, and the ethical basis of BBD's working method will not cause any concerns or problems regarding data exploration and publication," Barrell says.

BBD's expansion into the UK is riding on the trend of a boom in China's big-data industry, which enjoys the advantage of abundant data due to the nation's big population, heavy investment in the sector, and large number of well-qualified engineers.

While the size of the big-data sector is hard to determine because it has really just taken off in the past five years, the Beijing-based intelligence firm Analysis International estimates that big-data related marketing services in China grew over 150 percent to 2 billion yuan ($300 million; 272 million euros) in 2015, and is forecast to increase to 27.7 billion yuan by 2018.

The leading big-data pioneers in China are the country's leading internet firms, Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, which generate a large pool of data in the process of providing services to users, and use the data to create new commercial products. Alibaba, for example, makes loans to small businesses that do not have bank credit ratings, by assessing their credit risk based on their e-commerce activities.

"China's investment in the big-data industry and its availability of data gives it a big advantage. This advantage has a degree of international transferability when Chinese firms take the model they develop and apply them to other countries" says Federico Pigni, an associate professor in the Department of Management and Technology at Grenoble's Ecole de Management.

"In the past few years, the demand for data scientists globally has exploded, and schools were not anticipating this demand from industry, so there is a lack of big-data scientists worldwide, therefore Chinese firms that have capability in big data are making a wise decision to move into the UK market," Pigni says.

Globally, the big-data market potential is huge. German-based data firm Statista estimates the big-data market value in 2015 to be worth $22.6 billion, which is expected to almost double to $40.8 billion in 2018, and reach $92.2 billion by 2026.

cecily.liu@chinadaily.com.cn