Star Trek: The Original Series' Spock are two of the franchise's most celebrated characters, naturally raising the question of who is stronger to audiences. Data and Spock are essentially the same Star Trek archetype - the technically brilliant, emotionally stunted, non-human outsider attempting to find their place in the galaxy aboard the USS Enterprise. It's a character type the franchise would return to plenty of times with the likes of Odo, Seven of Nine, and Saru.
Spock and Data also happen to be incredibly powerful physically. While neither character was a particularly enthusiastic fighter, they were generally unstoppable when they fully engaged in a battle. Though Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Commander Data never engaged in hand-to-hand combat, there's a fairly obvious answer as to who would come out on top in that showdown.
Who's Stronger: Spock Or Data?
Owing to his half-Vulcan heritage, Spock was significantly stronger than the average human. His metabolism and lung capacity were superior to that of humans; he very nearly killed Captain James T. Kirk with relative ease in the TOS episode "Amok Time." The younger Spock also showed his physical prowess in the Strange New Worlds episode "The Serene Squall," overpowering and evading a group of pirates attempting to commandeer the Enterprise.
While Spock's physical abilities are impressive, Data is quite simply in another league. Rarely did Data encounter a being who could approach his physical abilities, easily manhandling Klingons and even Borg drones. In addition to his impressive brute force, Data could withstand massive amounts of radiation, mind control, disease, and even the vacuum of space. He wasn't indestructible - hence Data's noble death in Star Trek: Nemesis - but the notion of a lone Vulcan being able to overpower him seems laughable.
What Spock and Data's One Meeting Revealed About Them
Of course, the notion of Spock and Data engaging in a fistfight seems highly unlikely under any circumstances, as the two were essentially kindred souls. The pair only met once, in the TNG two-parter "Unification," where Spock was leading an underground revolution on Romulus. Captain Picard and Data were dispatched to Romulus to investigate Spock's movement.
In a quiet moment between the two, Data asked Spock about his decision to renounce his humanity and pursue a life as a Vulcan. Spock acknowledged this was a conscious decision, with Data noting the irony that Spock had so casually forsaken what the android had been pursuing his whole life. It's a moment of introspection for the two, the kind Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes pulled off with remarkable ease in its prime. There's not much mystery to who would win in a battle between Spock and Data, but a philosophical debate between the two would be far more interesting than a fistfight anyway.