Data Foundation starts national data strategy effort

The Data Foundation is launching a community-led effort in September 2026 to build a new National Data Strategy for the next decade. The plan will produce a public discussion draft shaped by federal, state, private-sector and civil society input as AI changes how public data is built and used.

Why it matters: - The Data Foundation's project aims to set a shared national vision for data infrastructure at a time when AI is increasing demand for public data and changing what governments need to deliver. - The effort is meant to move beyond the 2019 Federal Data Strategy and reflect how data infrastructure is now built across federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, private and philanthropic actors. - A national strategy could influence how the U.S. balances transparency, privacy, interoperability and data use for evidence, evaluation and AI readiness.

What happened: - The Data Foundation announced a community-led effort to develop a National Data Strategy for the next decade. - The process begins in September 2026 with a convening of former and current federal leaders, state officials, AI researchers, statisticians, evaluation experts, privacy scholars, technology companies, philanthropies, nonprofit organizations and policy experts. - The organization will produce a discussion draft instead of a final report. - The draft will be released for public comment and refined through broader stakeholder engagement.

The details: - The strategy is framed as a "framework of radical collaboration" and a shared vision of America's data future. - The Data Foundation said the work responds to a very different environment than 2019, when the earlier federal strategy was released. - The National Data Strategy is intended to build broad consensus on tradeoffs in three areas: transparency and privacy; state, local, tribal and territorial leadership alongside public-private partnerships; and AI-ready public data infrastructure and evaluation of administrative data. - Nick Hart, president and CEO of the Data Foundation, said new state leadership, private and philanthropic investment, and rising public expectations around privacy and transparency have reshaped what is possible and needed. - Ron Vassallo, vice chair of the Data Foundation board, said few organizations are positioned to lead the effort because the Data Foundation helped shape the original Federal Data Strategy and has spent the past decade as a nonpartisan convener on data policy, evidence, statistics, technology and governance. - The Data Foundation said details on the public comment and engagement process will be announced in fall 2026. - The Data Foundation's Center for Data Policy focuses on the legal and regulatory frameworks that govern data collection, management and use, with a stated goal of interoperability, standardization and appropriate data privacy across sectors. - More information is available through the organization's LinkedIn page, Bluesky profile, YouTube channel and X account.

Between the lines: - The choice to publish a discussion draft signals an attempt to widen buy-in before any final policy framework takes shape. - The inclusion of state, tribal, local, private-sector and nonprofit voices suggests the Data Foundation sees national data policy as a distributed governance problem, not only a federal one. - AI is the clear catalyst here, because the announcement ties the need for a new strategy to changing demands on public data and evaluation.

What's next: - The September 2026 convening will start the drafting process. - The public comment and engagement window will be announced in fall 2026. - The discussion draft will be revised after stakeholder input before any broader consensus document emerges.