Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge and actionable insights from data across a broad range of application domains.

Data science is an interdisciplinary field focused on extracting knowledge from data sets, which are typically large (see big data), and applying the knowledge and actionable insights from data to solve problems in a wide range of application domains. The field encompasses preparing data for analysis, formulating data science problems, analyzing data, developing data-driven solutions, and presenting findings to inform high-level decisions in a broad range of application domains. As such, it incorporates skills from computer science, statistics, information science, mathematics, information visualization, data integration, graphic design, complex systems, communication and business. In 2015, the American Statistical Association identified database management, statistics and machine learning, and distributed and parallel systems as the three emerging foundational professional communities.

Many statisticians, including Nate Silver, have argued that data science is not a new field, but rather another name for statistics. Others argue that data science is distinct from statistics because it focuses on problems and techniques unique to digital data. Vasant Dhar writes that statistics emphasizes quantitative data and description. In contrast, data science deals with quantitative and qualitative data (e.g. images) and emphasizes prediction and action. Andrew Gelman of Columbia University has described statistics as a nonessential part of data science. Stanford professor David Donoho writes that data science is not distinguished from statistics by the size of datasets or use of computing, and that many graduate programs misleadingly advertise their analytics and statistics training as the essence of a data science program. He describes data science as an applied field growing out of traditional statistics. In summary, data science can be therefore described as an applied branch of statistics.