Fact of the Week: Canada’s Stock of Data in 2018 Was Worth Up to $164 Billion

Source: Statistics Canada, “The value of data in Canada: Experimental estimates,” July 2019.

Commentary: Determining the value of data in the modern economy is difficult, because large swaths of data are produced and utilized in-house, with no public determination of market value. The Canadian government undertook a project to estimate the value of the nation’s data, finding that in 2018 the total stock of data was worth between $118 billion and $164 billion. This figure stands below the value of intellectual property ($172 billion), but it is growing quickly, having more than doubled since 2005.