Why Data Middle Platforms May Be the Biggest Opportunity of the Next 20 Years

1. Why did data middle platforms suddenly become hot?

In 2018, major internet giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, and JD.com publicly championed the middle‑platform strategy, sparking a wave of organizational reforms that aimed to break down data silos and enable unified data sharing across business lines.

Inspired by Supercell’s “mid‑platform” approach, Alibaba adopted the concept to address duplicated development efforts and improve efficiency, defining three pillars: technology middle platform, data middle platform, and business middle platform.

Shulan Technology, founded in 2016 by former Alibaba data‑platform engineers, witnessed this evolution firsthand and positioned itself as an independent supplier of enterprise data middle‑platform services.

2. The essence of a data middle platform

China’s enterprise IT has progressed through three stages: internal informationization (2000‑2015), the rise of internet thinking (2004‑2012), and the mobile‑internet era (post‑2013) that generated massive new data sources. These stages created two key conditions for data middle platforms: mature underlying IT infrastructure and a growing recognition of data’s strategic value.

The core challenge is the conflict between stable management structures and rapidly changing business needs, as well as the difficulty of integrating legacy systems with new SaaS tools. A data middle platform acts as a “router” that connects old and new data, enabling better decision‑making and business performance.

3. Why build a platform?

Shulan defines a data middle platform as a set of mechanisms that help enterprises make data usable, connect traditional IT architectures with new data sources, and ultimately improve decision quality and business outcomes. Success depends first on strategy, then organization, and finally tools.

Shulan’s experience shows that a platform‑first approach, despite early challenges in measuring ROI, can create scalable value across industries by providing a unified data exchange layer, data assetization, and data‑driven business capabilities.

4. What does a deployed data middle platform look like?

Shulan delivers three layers: data exchange (a gateway that unifies heterogeneous systems), data assetization (transforming raw data into usable assets with tagging, governance, and security), and data businessization (leveraging assets for specific business applications such as content search, marketing, or risk control).

Case studies include:

China CITIC Group : unified data across banking, securities, real estate, and retail to enable group‑wide analytics and reduce system complexity.

Fashion Group (Cosmo, etc.) : built a content repository and internal search engine that reduced proposal preparation time from hours to minutes and laid the foundation for new content‑driven services.

These implementations illustrate how a platform can evolve from data routing to asset creation and finally to new business models.

5. The big opportunity – who will win?

Industry experts predict that data middle platforms could become a trillion‑yuan market over the next two decades, with a surge in demand expected around 2021. Competitors include large‑scale big‑data platforms (e.g., North Cloud, Kangaroo Cloud), traditional ERP vendors (Kingdee, Yonyou), and emerging SaaS players.

Investors like IDG’s Niu Kuiguang see the advantage of teams with deep Alibaba middle‑platform experience, but also acknowledge that startups can succeed by standardizing methodologies, building ecosystems of independent data developers (IDVs), and focusing on reusable core capabilities rather than custom projects.

Shulan’s strategy involves publishing standardized middle‑platform methodology, offering a “Helios Project” to onboard partners, and fostering an ecosystem that separates core data infrastructure from downstream applications.