Promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovation Through Business-to-Business (B2B) Data Sharing
Summary
To bolster competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation, the next administration should facilitate business-to-business (B2B) data sharing between startups and data-rich, established companies. Asymmetry in the digital economy is an existing market failure that, if left unchecked will continue to intensify to the detriment of consumer choice and our collective security.
Leveling the playing field requires policy to remove barriers to entry created by data advantages and to promote market competition through increased access to big data. Specifically, we propose that the Small Business Administration’s Office of Investment and Innovation establish a data-sharing program that gives entrepreneurs access to the data they need to improve algorithms underpinning their products and services. This would support a thriving and diverse ecosystem of startups that could in time yield valuable new markets and products.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.
Jobseekers, employees at smaller organizations, and local public workers need more than a weekend crash course in AI. They need practice choosing useful tasks, protecting data, testing outputs, and explaining where human judgment remains necessary.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
As Congress considers broader packages to advance critical minerals production and supply chain resilience, science diplomacy vehicles must be part of that conversation, not as an afterthought, but as an intentional and foundational pillar of any strategy.