The seismological observation system in China achieved rapid development during the last five years. The Data Management Center (DMC) of the China Earthquake Network Center (CENC) of the China Earthquake Administration (CEA) now receives and archives waveform data from more than 1000 permanent seismic stations around China in real time. For operational, backup, and data security considerations, the DMC at the Institute of Geophysics (IGP), the CEA was established at the end of 2007. The IGP DMC is capable of receiving and processing continuous waveform data in real time from more than 1000 permanent seismic stations around China. Currently, the data processing and management mainly include data quality control, data format conversion, event data extraction at user’s request, and data download service via Internet. By now, the IGP DMC has supplied about 150 terabytes waveform data to over 120 researches of more than 30 academic institutions. More than 20 papers have been published in professional journals. After the great Wenchuan earthquake, the real-time waveform data from 56 portable stations deployed in the aftershock area were added to IGP DMC. All these data make the IGP DMC a critical platform for supporting relevant seismological research. This paper gives a detailed description of the permanent seismic stations of the CEA’s seismological observation system, the technical system construction of the IGP DMC, establishment of the near-real-time automatic event-extraction system for large earthquakes, as well as the prompt data support to Wenchuan earthquake-related researches.