Wikidata begins to store actual data
February 4, 2013. The Wikidata project reached a major milestone, when it began to store information about each Wikidata "entity" in those entities' own pages. This goal, which is the start of what is known as "Phase 2", means that Wikidata can begin to hold the data used for infoboxes in Wikipedia, so that one day each language Wikipedia will no longer have to store its own infobox information. This process will also have the side effect of creating the world's largest structured database of general-knowledge information.
Wikidata does not run on Semantic MediaWiki, although it uses code originally created for Semantic MediaWiki, that is now being spun off into an independent library, "DataValues", that will be used by both sets of software. Additionally, some of the Wikidata team are affiliated with the SMW Project, most notably Wikidata team leader Denny Vrandečić.
For more information, see the Wikidata announcement.
