An electric car installed with China-made operation software Photo: VCG

A total of 1.84 million computer software copyright applications were registered in China in 2022, while the annual growth rate for registration of software related to artificial intelligence (AI) and big data surging more than 50 percent.

According to a report from the Copyright Protection Center of China (CPCC) on Monday, the 1.84-million figure marks the number of registered computer software copyright applications above 1 million for five consecutive years.

It amounted to a total registration scale to 10 million during the past decade and the annual number of registered software programs increases 12 folds compared with 2012, China Media Group reported.

In 2022, the copyright registration numbers for software related to AI and big data exceeded 35,000, with the growth rate for AI increasing by 32 times and 45 times for big data compared with the initial registration numbers. The growth rate for the two categories jumped more than 50 percent annually, much higher than the overall software registration growth rate.

The total registration number for APPs and applets exceeded 250,000 in 2022, accounting for 14 percent of the total , which is 9 percentage points higher than the number in 2012, per CPCC data.

The operation of China's software industry remained stable over the first two months of 2023, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information showed.

The industry business revenue reached 1.45 trillion yuan ($210.56 billion), a year-on-year increase of 11 percent, while the industry profits totaled 176.9 billion yuan, up 12.2 percent, according to the official data.

The CPCC report also highlighted the contributions of colleges and universities. The registration from 1,592 universities and colleges in China totaled 102,546, a 10-fold increase compared with the number of registrations in 2012.

Global Times