The Genome Sequence Archive (GSA), a new data repository for raw sequence reads in China, has been developed in compliance with the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) standards. It supports data generated from a variety of sequencing platforms ranging from Sanger sequencing to single-cell sequencing and provides data storing and sharing services freely for worldwide scientific communities. Since it went online in late 2015, GSA has archived more than 500 TB data and been acknowledged by many high-profile journals, including Cell, Nature, PNAS, GPB, etc. Focusing on omics data submission, storing and sharing typically for Chinese users, GSA promotes the initiative of the National Bioinformatics Center of China. This paper introduces the specifies of GSA as data collection, curation, management and exchange to facilitate users to understand and use GSA database.