Guide: The 56th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China shows that in the first half of 2025, generative artificial intelligence products have achieved all-round progress from technology to application, with a rapid growth in the number of products and a continuous expansion of application scenarios.
July 21 News – The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) released the 56th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”).
The Report shows that as of June, the number of Internet users in China reached 1.123 billion, with an Internet penetration rate of 79.7%. The number of “silver-haired” Internet users aged 60 and above reached 161 million, and the number of rural Internet users reached 322 million, maintaining a steady growth trend. The Internet penetration rate among the elderly group in China reached 52.0%, and that in rural areas was 69.2%, an increase of 1.9 percentage points compared with December 2024.
In terms of Internet infrastructure, as of June, the total number of domain names in China was 32.62 million, among which the number of national top-level domain names “.CN” was 20.85 million; the number of IPv6 addresses was 68,567 blocks/32; the total number of 5G base stations in China reached 4.55 million. Over the past decade, it has promoted the realization of “broadband access to every village and 5G access to every town”, with the proportion of administrative villages covered by 5G exceeding 90%; mobile users’ Internet traffic has achieved double-digit growth for six consecutive months.
The Report indicates that in the first half of 2025, generative artificial intelligence products have made all-round progress from technology to application, with a surge in the number of products and a continuous expansion of application scenarios. Firstly, China’s influence in the field of artificial intelligence has been significantly enhanced. As of March, a total of 346 generative artificial intelligence services have completed filing with the Cyberspace Administration of China. The emergence of China’s artificial intelligence products has attracted global attention. DeepSeek surpassed 30 million daily active users worldwide within 20 days of its launch, topping the app stores in 140 countries and regions, and becoming the generative artificial intelligence application with the fastest user growth rate in the world. Secondly, generative artificial intelligence technology continues to penetrate into specific application scenarios in depth.
In terms of users, as of June, the proportion of users using generative artificial intelligence products to answer questions was the highest, reaching 80.9%. In terms of industry, the scale of China’s artificial intelligence industry exceeded 700 billion yuan in 2024, maintaining a growth rate of more than 20% for many consecutive years. Domestic artificial intelligence products have not only made breakthroughs in terms of 100-billion-parameter scale and multimodal capabilities but also deeply integrated with scenarios such as office collaboration, inclusive education, industrial design, and content creation, building an intelligent application ecosystem covering multiple fields.
In addition, the export momentum of digital entertainment remains strong. In 2024, the overseas market scale of online literature exceeded 5 billion yuan, cultivating 460,000 overseas online writers, with the number of overseas users exceeding 350 million, covering more than 200 countries and regions. Among them, the number of users in the Japanese market surged by 180%, becoming the emerging market with the fastest user growth rate in the world.
