Mark Parsons is the Secretary General of the Research Data Alliance All of society’s grand challenges require diverse (often large) data to be shared and integrated across cultures, scales, and technologies. Indeed data sharing, and the infrastructure that enables it, is fundamental to innovation in the 21st century. But creating that new international data infrastructure is a grand challenge in its own right. History has shown that infrastructure is never truly planned or designed up front. It evolves through a staged process that can involve complex dynamics, unanticipated consequences, and significant friction between individuals, organizations, and systems. Collaborators may agree on general directions or principles, but they do not necessarily have common goals. Coalition style politics emerge that can both ameliorate and exacerbate the friction, but it is through this multifaceted perspective that we achieve greater understanding. The Research Data Alliance (RDA) embraces this complex dynamic. It has no specific plan or architecture, but it provides core principles and a “neutral place” that provide enough alignment to move forward while still recognizing the value of friction. The focus is on building and implementing bridges or gateways that connect disparate systems, organizations, and processes in order to create more interconnection and increase data sharing. The RDA is an international member organisation, currently supported by the European Commission and the Australian and United States governments. It is less than two years old but has already made significant advances in bringing the community together, identifying key issues to address, and even delivering the initial products that help bridge across cultures and systems. This talk will review the approach, operations, and products of the RDA and how they are advance us toward creating a global data infrastructure. How government agencies can enhance the adoption of RDA products and accelerate infrastructure development will be emphasized. Bio: Before being appointed Secretary General of the Research Data Alliance, Mark was the Managing Director of the US Component of the Research Data Alliance and the Rensselaer Center for the Digital Society. He focuses on stewarding research data and making them more accessible and useful across different ways of knowing. He has been leading major data stewardship efforts for more than 20 years, and received the American Geophysical Union Charles S. Falkenberg Award as an advocate of robust data stewardship as a vital component of Earth system science and as an important profession in its own right. Prior to joining Rensselaer, Mark was a Senior Associate Scientist and the Lead Project Manager at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). While at NSIDC, he defined and implemented their overall data management process and led the data management effort for the ICSU/WMO International Polar Year 2007-2008. He is currently active in several international committees while helping lead the Research Data Alliance in its goal of accelerating innovation through data exchange. His research interests include the role of scientific social interaction in the success, development, and extension of data sharing networks.