China has over 1.12B internet users, boosting prowess in culture, AI

An AIGC interactive installation is pictured at Zhongguancun International Innovation Center, venue for the 2025 Zhongguancun Forum (ZGC Forum), in Beijing, capital of China, March 26, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

China has made significant strides in internet development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), with the internet becoming more inclusive and fueling the rise of the digital economy.

As of June 2025, there were more than 1.12 billion internet users, and internet penetration in China reached 79.7 percent, an increase of 1.1 percentage points compared with December 2024, according to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on Monday.

According to the report, significant efforts have been made to enable key groups, such as the elderly and rural residents, to access various internet services and share in the benefits of this progress.

As of June 2025, China had 161 million internet users aged 60 and above, and 322 million living in rural areas. Internet penetration among these groups reached 52 percent and 69.2 percent, respectively.

"Internet resources are now more abundant, strengthening the digital economy and reducing the internet penetration gap between urban and rural areas," said CNNIC director Liu Yulin.

Liu added that 5G services now covered over 90 percent of administrative villages across China's vast hinterlands. Thanks to this, more rural residents are enjoying the convenience and dividends brought by the digital economy, selling specialities through livestreaming and tapping into tourism.

Meanwhile, the continued development of the internet in China has played a key role in promoting Chinese culture both domestically and internationally, the report said, citing the rising export of Chinese online literature and games, along with the growing synergy between popular web series and related tourist destinations.

For instance, in 2024, the overseas market scale of Chinese online literature exceeded 5 billion yuan (about 700 million U.S. dollars). Reaching more than 200 countries and regions worldwide, Chinese online literature now has more than 350 million overseas readers.

In particular, Japan saw its number of Chinese online literature readers grow by an astounding 180 percent, making it the fastest-growing emerging market in the sector.

Zhang Yijun, first vice chairman of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, said that China's online literature has emerged as a new mass cultural art form and promoted the development of a diversified value system within the industry, and that its integration with micro-short dramas opened up new paths for the industry's transformation in 2024.

Online games emerged as another growth point of China's digital development in the cultural and entertainment field. In the first half of 2025, 25 domestic games generated 11.6 billion yuan in revenue overseas, unlocking more opportunities for more Chinese gaming products to go global.

For instance, video game "Black Myth: Wukong" had sold 28 million copies worldwide by the end of last year, generating over 9 billion yuan in revenue within five months of its release.

Apart from online art and entertainment creations, the report also highlighted China's remarkable progress in generative artificial intelligence (AI) development. It noted that in the first half of 2025, generative AI products saw development on all fronts, from technology to application.

As of March 2025, a total of 346 generative AI services were registered at the Cyberspace Administration of China, the report said.

In 2024, the scale of the AI market exceeded 700 billion yuan, maintaining a strong growth momentum of more than 20 percent.

In terms of application, domestic Chinese AI products have achieved significant breakthroughs, reaching parameter scales in the hundreds of billions and achieving multi-modal capabilities. They have been deeply integrated into scenarios such as office collaboration, education, industrial design and content creation, forming an intelligent application ecosystem covering multiple fields.

Zhang Xiao, deputy director of CNNIC, took DeepSeek as an example that showcases China's progress and influence in the AI sector globally. Within 20 days of release, the open-source AI model amassed 30 million daily active users worldwide, making itself a generative AI application that boasts the fastest growth rate of global users.