Taka Ariga, a former federal chief data and AI officer, explains why the Data Foundation is launching a community effort to create a national data strategy.
October 19, 2026 6:29 pm
4 min read
When something matters to the nation, Americans expect a plan to protect it, strengthen it and put it to work for everyone. The United States has those plans for national security, critical minerals, quantum computing, disaster relief, cybersecurity and many other domains. Look closely, and each of them rests on the same foundation: good data. Data tells policymakers how the country is doing, where the opportunities are and whether America is keeping pace with its competitors and serving its people well.
That is the quiet power of good data policy. It rarely makes headlines, but it lets people ask better questions and get better answers. When government makes high-quality data digitally accessible, that data can power the economy, protect public health, drive scientific discovery and hold government accountable.
So if public data is critical infrastructure for the American people, why doesn’t the U.S. have a national strategy for it? Other countries have already answered that question. The United Kingdom published a National Data Strategy in 2020, and China has built national policy and a dedicated agency around data as a strategic asset. America has not.
The federal government has taken important steps to make data more open over the past two decades. Launched in 2009, Data.gov gives the public a front door to many federal, state and local open datasets. Researchers can request access to restricted federal data through a single standard application process, required by the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which President Donald Trump signed in 2019. The Federal Data Strategy, released in 2019, pushed federal agencies to manage their data better and drew on outside input from industry and researchers. These efforts and others represented genuine, bipartisan progress.
A lot has changed since 2019. Generative artificial intelligence has made public data more valuable and more sensitive. States and localities are building their own data capacity and taking on more leadership. Private and philanthropic money is pouring into data projects that blend public and private data. Public expectations about privacy continue to evolve as more data becomes available and is increasingly combined across sectors. This moment calls for a shared vision that reflects the country’s diverse needs and perspectives. That vision has to reach beyond the federal government and cut across sectors, geography, communities, disciplines and partisan lines.
Shared is the operative word. A national data strategy should start from what Americans need, expect and worry about, not from what’s convenient for any one function, agency, or industry. It has to reckon with data’s role in AI, scientific research, economic growth, effective government and public trust. It needs government at every level, industry, philanthropy, academia, and civil society groups weighing in on the hard tradeoffs ahead. It has to answer questions like:
- How much privacy are we willing to trade for better accuracy?
- How do we share more data while building public trust?
- What should public-private partnerships look like?
- How do we build a framework that works across different domains without forcing a one-size-fits-all approach?
That’s the gap the Data Foundation is stepping in to fill.
We launched a community-led effort to guide a national data strategy. Instead of a “finished” report, it will be a living document that lays out key questions and tensions for feedback, discussion, and even critique. This is the ethos of collective impact through radical collaboration. The point isn’t to settle every area where communities and disciplines may diverge about potential data uses or outcomes. The goal is to make sure everyone who wants a seat at the table has one, and that those who need to be represented are. We are planning broad but deliberate outreach across sectors and communities. At NationalDataStrategy.us, you can sign up for updates and comment on the discussion draft once it becomes available.
To be clear, we are not looking to write a new federal data strategy. The National Data Strategy will build on that foundation and extend it into the broader ecosystem, shaped by every layer of our society. That means asking how data should work for everyone and offering clear stewardship, shared commitment, measured progress, sustained investment, and a plan for the future. It’s time to treat data as the critical national asset it is. America’s competitiveness depends on it.
Taka Ariga is the vice president for data policy and impact at the Data Foundation, a national nonprofit that advocates for open data and evidence-informed decision-making. He previously served as chief data and AI officer at the Office of Personnel Management and chief data scientist at the Government Accountability Office.
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