The China Argo Real-time Data Center (CARDC) was established in 2003, under the support from the Ministry of Science and Technology.
From then on, CARDC has being an important platform of the Second Institute of Oceanography, as well as the key laboratory of Satellite Ocean Environment Dynamics (SOED) from 2009.
CARDC is responsible for the implementation of China Argo program and participation in the international Argo activities. It also serves as an Argo DAC ("CSIO") with its established Argo data receiving, processing and distributing system.
In October 2015, CARDC established the Beidou profiling float data services through which observed data from Chinese profiling floats (using Beidou satellite for data transmission) can be received and processed in real-time.
In October 2019, CARDC was brought into the list of the observation and research station of Ministry of Natural Resources with the name "Observation and Research Station of Global Ocean Argo System (Hangzhou)".