World Internet Development Report 2024 and China Internet Development Report 2024 were released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies on Thursday, at the ongoing 2024 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, in Wuzhen, East China's Zhejiang Province. Photo: Zhang Weilan/GT

China ranks the second in the world on the Global Internet Development Index, said the Blue book for the World Internet Conference released on Thursday. 

The blue book also showed that China and the US are ahead in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), as China continues to cultivate strength in AI innovation.

The blue book, which consists of two reports - World Internet Development Report 2024 and China Internet Development Report 2024 - was released by the Chinese Academy of Cyberspace Studies (CACS) on Thursday, at the ongoing 2024 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit.

The index showed that the US and China take the lead in internet development, followed by South Korea, Finland, Singapore and the Netherlands.

In terms of digital technology and innovation capability, China is rapidly enhancing its capabilities in cutting-edge innovations, said the World Internet Development Report 2024.

The World Internet Development Report 2024 also highlighted the role of digital technology in driving innovation, with AI leading the trend of global competition. It claimed that China and the US keep ahead in the field of AI innovations. While the US companies lead in the development, investment, and commercialization of top-level large AI models, whereas their Chinese counterparts continue to forge advantages in AI-innovation potential and market applications. 

Over the past 30 years, China has made remarkable progress in internet development. The country's information sector has rapidly advanced, achieving major breakthroughs in 3G and 4G, and leading in 5G mobile technology, Wang Jiang, president of CACS, said on Thursday.

Currently, China has rolled out the world's largest and most advanced 5G network, connected with 889 million 5G mobile phones, accounting for 52 percent of the world's total, according to CACS data.

By the end of 2023, more than 5.17 million 5G base stations had been deployed worldwide, a year-on-year increase of 42 percent, said the Telecommunication Development Industry Alliance. 

The commercial use of 5G continues to expand in China. In 2023, the mobile market contributed approximately $970 billion in added value to China's economy, which is expected to reach $1.1 trillion in 2030, the China Internet Development Report 2024 said.

In addition, China's independently developed BeiDou Navigation Satellite System has entered a phase of large-scale application, bolstered by the country's strong information infrastructure, Wang said.

And, China's computing power infrastructure is also expanding rapidly, now ranking the second in the world. With nearly 1.1 billion internet users and the internet penetration rate of 78 percent, the value of data resource is being swiftly leveraged, helping foster new quality productive forces, Wang said.

Data from the World Intellectual Property Organization showed that from 2014 to 2023, the number of patent applications in generative AI in China exceeded 38,000, ranking the first in the world. 

China is home to the second-largest number of quantum computing enterprises globally, accounting for 25 percent of the world's total, the World Internet Development Report 2024 said, citing data from the 2024 Global Quantum Computing Industry Development Prospect by ICV.

The World Internet Development Report 2024 also indicated that future-oriented industries are becoming a key battleground for competition among major nations. This mainly refers to emerging sectors such as AI, humanoid robots, metaverse, next-generation internet, 6G, quantum information and deep sea, deep air and deep space, said Wang.

Since its inception in 2017, the blue book has been published globally for eight consecutive years. It evaluated internet development indicators in a representative sample of 52 countries on five continents, measuring six dimensions including information infrastructure, digital technology and innovation, digital economy, digital government, cybersecurity, and international governance in cyberspace.

Global Times