Extending OpenBB for A-Share and Hong Kong Stock Analysis with AKShare and Tushare

Guest post by Roger Ye, Software Engineering Manager at EPAM Systems

Introducing OpenBB

OpenBB is a fintech startup that enables financial institutions to build tailored AI-powered analytics applications integrating their data and AI agents.

The architecture addresses a challenge many firms face: integrating data from multiple sources into consistent and customizable workflows.

OpenBB offers two products: the open-source Open Data Platform (the backend engine) and the enterprise OpenBB Workspace (the frontend interface), forming a complete “backend + frontend” financial analytics stack.

For firms operating in Greater China markets, native coverage of A-shares and Hong Kong-listed equities has been limited.

Compared to traditional financial terminals in China like Tonghuashun, Tongdaxin, or Wind, OpenBB differs significantly in technical architecture, target users, and ecosystem extensibility.

The extensions described below demonstrate how OpenBB's extensible architecture enables integration of region-specific data sources and the creation of tailored AI-powered applications.

OpenBB Workspace

OpenBB Workspace enables teams to build custom analytics applications by combining data sources with AI agents into configurable dashboards. Rather than providing ready-to-use applications, Workspace serves as a development environment where firms create tailored solutions for their specific workflows.

Key capabilities include custom widget creation, integration with proprietary data sources, the OpenBB Copilot (native AI-assistant), and deployment flexibility (cloud, VPC, or on-premise). The Workspace is designed for organizations that need to combine external data with internal sources while maintaining control over their data and AI agents.

Open Data Platform by OpenBB

The Open Data Platform (ODP) consists of an open-source toolset that includes a desktop app, a Python package, and various data extensions.

It runs locally and provides several capabilities relevant to quantitative analysis and data engineering workflows:

Unified data abstraction layer: Connect to multiple data providers (FRED, FRED, IMF, BLS, Congress, FOMC, etc.) through a single interface, supporting both public and proprietary sources. OpenBB provides example extensions that unify access to public financial and economic datasets. However, the real value is ODP’s extensibility, so you can install or uninstall individual data extensions.
Standardized output: All data returned as Pandas DataFrames or JSON, compatible with Jupyter, Airflow, and quantitative strategies.
REST API deployment: Launch a FastAPI-powered backend that can be accessed by custom frontends, scripts, or AI agents.
MCP servers: MCP connects your integrated data to any AI agent (Claude, OpenBB Copilot, etc.) without custom engineering.

Part 1: Extending the Open Data Platform with AKShare and Tushare

Data integration is fundamental to any quantitative workflow. While the Open Data Platform natively supports global providers, coverage for China's domestic markets requires custom extensions. To address this, I've created OpenBB-compatible extensions for two established open-source data libraries:

These extensions integrate with OpenBB's provider framework, enabling firms to access A-share and Hong Kong stock data through the same interface used for other markets.

1. Python API Usage

After installing the extensions, you can access A-share and HK stock data through OpenBB's unified Python interface:

from openbb import obb
# Fetch historical prices for Sinopec (600028.SH) via AKShare
df = obb.equity.price.historical(
    symbol="600028",
    start_date="2024-01-01",
    end_date="2025-09-08",
    provider="akshare"
).to_dataframe()
print(df.tail())

2. Command-Line Interface

Beyond Python, ODP offers a command-line interface for quick queries and visualizations, such as plotting candlestick charts for Sinopec (600028):

3. REST API

The Platform also exposes a REST API, enabling cross-language integration. Once the local server is running (using openbb-api), data is accessible at: http://127.0.0.1:6900

Part 2: Integrating with OpenBB Workspace

OpenBB Workspace provides a web-based interface for interactive analysis. After logging in, connect your local backend via the Apps tab.

Connecting Your Local Backend

From the Workspace sidebar, access the Apps tab and add your backend:

Name: openbb-api
URL: http://127.0.0.1:6900

Or use this pre-filled link: https://pro.openbb.co/app?modal=connect-backend&name=OpenBB%20Platform&url=http://127.0.0.1:6900

Once connected, AKShare and Tushare widgets become available in the widget library, and you can open them with a quick search:

To streamline workflows for Chinese markets, I developed openbb-hka, a specialized Workspace application with prebuilt dashboards for A-shares and Hong Kong stocks.

Check the GitHub repository here.

Key Features include:

Dedicated dashboards for A-share and HK markets
Integrated AI assistant powered by DeepSeek
One-click conversion of AI-generated charts into interactive dashboard widgets

Quick Start

uv run uvicorn main:app --port 8000

Then add the backend in OpenBB Workspace using this URL: http://127.0.0.1:8000

After connecting it, two applications appear: A-Share Analysis and HK Stock Analysis.

The A-share dashboard provides a comprehensive view combining price, valuation, fundamentals, and capital flow data:

AI Agent Integration

OpenBB Workspace supports custom AI agents through backend integration. The openbb-hka application enables integration with AI models like Qianwen and DeepSeek for localized workflows, improving the overall experience and operational efficiency.

For detailed integration steps, refer to the openbb-hka project documentation and OpenBB Workspace's Agents Integration documentation.

Example query to the AI assistant:

"Based on available data, provide an investment recommendation for Sinopec (600028) in 2025."

The AI automatically pulls live data from your dashboard, generates a report with charts and analysis, and allows you to pin charts directly onto your Workspace for future reference or further analysis:

Part 4: Managing Backends Using the Open Data Platform Desktop Application

When using OpenBB for data analysis, the Workspace serves as the frontend interface and supports connections to multiple backends to meet analytical needs across different domains. The Open Data Platform (ODP) provides a cross-platform desktop application built on the Tauri framework, which allows unified management of various backend environments. In previous sections, we introduced two backend examples: the default backend included with ODP, and the openbb-hka backend that I developed. Below, we demonstrate how to manage these backends centrally using the ODP desktop application.

After installing and launching the ODP desktop application, you will see the main interface shown below. The application currently consists of three main management modules:

Backend Management: Configure and run multiple backend services simultaneously.
Python Environment Management: If multiple Python runtime environments are installed, you can switch between and manage them here.
API Key Management: Centrally configure and manage the API keys required for various services.

As shown in the image, the default installation includes the native OpenBB backend and the OpenBB MCP backend. To add a custom backend, such as openbb-hka, click the "New Backend" button.

In the dialog that appears, first select the corresponding Python runtime environment. Then, enter a name for the new backend and specify the startup command. After filling in the required information, click "Create" to successfully add the backend.

Once added, all backends will be displayed in a unified management list. From this interface, you can start or stop any backend service and use the "Logs" feature to monitor real-time status and log information, enabling convenient management and oversight of your backend environments.

Conclusion

OpenBB is redefining financial analysis, not just as a financial terminal, but as an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for finance. Its powerful abstraction layer and extensible architecture unlock unprecedented flexibility for AI-augmented investing, localized data integration, and personalized analytics.

Firms working with multiple regional markets can apply similar approaches to integrate other data providers while maintaining a standardized interface across their analytics infrastructure.

For commercial data sources like Wind, Choice, or iFinD, the same extension framework applies, enabling firms to build comprehensive data platforms that combine public and proprietary sources. I invite fellow developers and quants to join this ecosystem and help shape the future of open finance in Asia.

Roger Ye is a Software Engineering Manager at EPAM Systems based in Shenzhen, China. His career spans Motorola, Intel, and McAfee, with expertise in cross-platform application and embedded system development. He contributes to open-source projects and has authored programming books, including "Android System Programming." You can find him on LinkedIn.

TL;DR: We are open-sourcing the entire OpenBB product suite under a permissive open source license

Today is bittersweet.

On December 20, 2020, over the Christmas holidays, I wrote the first lines of Gamestonk Terminal, what would eventually become OpenBB. My flight home to visit my parents had been cancelled because of COVID, so I stayed in London and started building a tool to streamline my own investment research process.

At the time, the idea was simple: individuals (and firms) should be able to own their research platforms. They shouldn't have to adapt their workflows to whatever a data or software vendor decided to build. They should own the entire experience - from the data they connect to, to the interface analysts and PMs use every day, to the APIs, models, skills, tools and AI agents that increasingly form part of the investment process.

Over the last almost six years, OpenBB evolved far beyond anything I imagined when writing those first lines of code. We started as an open-source terminal and went on to build the SDK (now Open Data Platform), the OpenBB Bot, the OpenBB Workspace, the OpenBB Copilot, the Excel Add-in, and an ecosystem of applications created by our team, our partners and the community.

We kept innovating and being at the forefront of what user experience should be. I was prepared to die on the hill that if we were to become the financial infrastructure software for the buy-side and sell-side, then we could not monetize data. Monetizing data would have made us a data vendor. The margins would have been higher, but the incentive would have shifted from offering a better UI/UX to selling more datasets. Selling an infrastructure platform is incredibly challenging, for many reasons. And so we died on that hill. Along the way, we built an incredible community, reached millions of people through our open-source project, worked with some of the largest financial institutions in the world and assembled a team that consistently built far beyond what should have been possible for a company of 10 people. There is a lot to be proud of.

But despite all of that, we couldn't find the product-market fit needed to build a sustainable business around this vision within the time we had.

As a founder, I've always bet the house on the next customer, the next feature or the next launch to change the trajectory of the company. Until even just last weeks, when we announced self-serve Workspace Lite. If we were ever going to close doors, then we never wanted to look back and think "what if".

In hindsight, we could obviously have made different decisions - e.g., surrounding data, or going more vertical with clients and their workflows. But short-term monetization was not something I was prioritizing over where I thought the industry was heading. Ultimately, I wanted us to stand for something.

In the last phase of the company, I explored many paths to give OpenBB a better home. We spoke with larger companies that shared parts of our vision and tried to find a home where the products, and ideally the team behind them, could continue to grow. Ultimately, we weren't able to make that happen.

I left London with my wife to build OpenBB and dedicated almost six years of my life to it. So did the team. We built at the intersection of finance, AI, open source and software infrastructure, often working on problems before they became obvious to the broader market.

Before MCP existed, we had created our own API protocol so agents could interact with the data and analytics widgets in the workspace. In 2023, we built askobb, which let anyone ask investment research questions in natural language that required joining multiple different datasets together.

What this team created deserves to continue existing.

More importantly, I still believe the original vision is inevitable. The future of financial software is not a single platform every firm is forced to use. It is thousands of firms building environments that reflect how they actually work - their own data, internal systems, investment processes, risk models and compliance requirements. Increasingly, their own APIs, MCP servers, models and AI agents too.

If that future is coming, then the technology we built shouldn't disappear simply because we weren't able to commercialize it successfully.

It should become available to everyone.

Today, with the support of the team and OSS Capital, we are committing to releasing the entire OpenBB product suite under a permissive license. This includes OpenBB Workspace, Open Data Platform, OpenBB Copilot and the OpenBB Excel Add-in.

These products represent over 5 years of engineering, millions of dollars invested in R&D and thousands of decisions, experiments and iterations with users. They will become a foundation that individuals, startups, data providers and financial institutions can freely use, modify and build on top of.

We will share more details about the order and timing of each release as we complete that work. In parallel, we will determine the right long-term structure to steward the projects, support contributors and preserve what made OpenBB special in the first place. Existing customers and users of the hosted products will hear from us directly about timelines.

For the partners who built applications for the OpenBB ecosystem, I hope this decision makes your products even more valuable. You already did the work of turning your datasets and analytics into applications that users can interact with. Now, those applications will be able to run inside infrastructure that firms can fully own, extend and customize, while combining them with data and tools from other providers across the ecosystem.

The same applies to the broader community. Developers will be able to use the entire OpenBB stack as a starting point rather than rebuilding the same infrastructure from scratch. Firms will be able to deploy it, adapt it to their requirements and connect it to the systems where their differentiated knowledge already lives.

Over the years, many talented people helped make OpenBB what it is today - employees, contributors, partners. Every one of them left a mark on the product.

But I want to recognize the people who carried OpenBB to the very end. Through the uncertainty and the final stretch, they kept building. They are engineers, product builders, designers and operators who have worked across financial data, AI, developer infrastructure and open source. In alphabetical order, they are:

Andrew Kenreich, Head of Product Engineering - LinkedIn
Darren Lee, Software Engineer - GitHub, LinkedIn
Ihsan Saracgil, CPO - LinkedIn
José Donato, Software Engineer - LinkedIn, X, GitHub, Website
Juan Alfonso, Software Engineer - GitHub, LinkedIn
Minh Hoang, Head of Product - LinkedIn, GitHub
Ogonna Nnamani, DevOps - LinkedIn, Medium
Rita Figueiredo, Head of Marketing - LinkedIn, Website
Rita Soares, Head of Design - LinkedIn, Website
Theodore Aptekarev, CTO - LinkedIn, GitHub

To our customers: thank you for trusting a small team with such an ambitious vision.

To our partners: thank you for building alongside us and helping create a more open financial data ecosystem. I hope the next chapter gives you even more freedom to serve your users.

To our investors: thank you for believing in us, including when OpenBB was little more than an idea being built from my living room in London. In particular, I want to thank OSS Capital and Joseph Jacks for supporting this decision and enabling the technology to live beyond the company. Two people I want to name separately: Justin Hoffman and Larry Augustin - working with both of you made me a better founder, but more importantly, a better person.

To every contributor who opened a pull request, reported a bug, wrote documentation, answered a question in Discord, built an integration or simply told someone else about OpenBB: thank you. OpenBB would not have been possible without you.

Finally, to every person who spent part of their career building OpenBB: thank you. We pushed the industry forward and proved that world-class financial infrastructure can be built in the open. The commercial outcome doesn't change the quality of the work.

OpenBB didn't become the company I imagined when I started this journey. But the mission was always larger than the company, and I still believe the ideas behind it are right.

If, ten years from now, firms around the world are using OpenBB as the foundation for software they truly own - connecting their own data, building their own workflows and deploying their own AI agents - then what we built will have achieved something that lasts far beyond us; which was my goal all along: have an impact.

Thank you for one hell of a ride.

Didier Lopes
(LinkedIn, X, GitHub)