Recently, the Central Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issued the "Implementation Plan for Deepening Technological Innovation and Integrated Application of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) (2026-2030)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Plan"), which clarifies the roadmap, timetable, and task book for IPv6 development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.
At this critical juncture, a reporter from MIIT Intelligent Media (Communications World) interviewed Gao Wei, Director of the Internet Center at the Institute of Technology and Standards, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT). He pointed out that the Internet is currently entering a new development stage characterized by IPv6 as the foundation and intelligent interconnection as the feature. IPv6 development will accelerate into a new cycle of improving quality and efficiency, deep integration, and endogenous self-drive, and the industrial chain will usher in multiple predictable development opportunities.
Two Major Goals, Three Major Shifts:IPv6 Moves Towards Comprehensive Empowerment
As a programmatic document for the high-quality development of IPv6 during China's "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the "Implementation Plan" defines quantitative goals for two stages in 2027 and 2030: By 2027, the number of active IPv6 users will reach 900 million, the proportion of network traffic will reach 38%, the end-to-end connectivity level of IPv6 will be comprehensively improved, and technological innovation and integrated applications will achieve important phased results. By 2030, the number of active IPv6 users will reach 950 million, the proportion of network traffic will reach 42%, and a network service and application system dominated by IPv6 will be basically formed.
Gao Wei stated that compared with previous deployment plans, the core concept of the "Implementation Plan" has achieved three major shifts.
1From "Large-Scale Deployment" to "Comprehensive Empowerment"
The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical period for China's IPv6 to leap from large-scale deployment to comprehensive empowerment. The "Implementation Plan" takes promoting the comprehensive empowerment of IPv6 for the high-quality economic and social development as the main line, releasing policy orientations to strengthen technological innovation, expand industry integrated applications, and cultivate the industrial ecosystem.
2From "Policy-Driven" to "Enhancing Endogenous Momentum"
The "Implementation Plan" points out that by 2030, IPv6 will be extensively and deeply integrated with all industries and fields of the economy and society, building a technologically advanced, open and innovative, endogenous and self-driven, secure and reliable IPv6 industrial ecosystem.
3From "Dual-Stack Coexistence" to "Single-Stack Evolution"
The "Implementation Plan" explicitly proposes for the first time to accelerate the evolution towards an IPv6 single stack and promote the formation of a network service and application system dominated by IPv6. The so-called "single stack" refers to a comprehensive switch to pure IPv6 operation. This means that existing equipment in operators' backbone networks, metropolitan area networks, data centers, and government and enterprise networks will face large-scale replacement and upgrade demands.
Gao Wei stated that these three major shifts mark that China's IPv6 development has officially entered a new stage of improving quality and efficiency, deep integration, and endogenous self-drive.
In the Era of AI Agents,the IPv6 Industry Ushers in a New Starting Point
Currently, the large-scale deployment of AI agents has spawned new network demands such as massive device interconnection, trusted identity management, deterministic transmission, and collaborative attack protection. IPv6 has become an indispensable core infrastructure in the intelligent era, ushering in a new starting point for innovative applications.
Gao Wei analyzed that the technical characteristics of IPv6 precisely match the development needs of AI agents. The 128-bit address space of IPv6 can provide a unique identity identifier for each agent; the "IPv6+" technology system can provide deterministic network guarantees for AI applications; and the native security mechanism supports trusted interconnection across the entire network. Meanwhile, computing power, as the core infrastructure for AI development, relies on high-quality network support for its efficient scheduling. IPv6 can empower high-quality interconnection and intelligent scheduling of the national integrated computing power network.
The integration of IPv6 and AI will spawn a new paradigm of the intelligent Internet.
Gao Wei pointed out that the "Implementation Plan" takes the integrated innovation of IPv6 and AI as one of the key tasks and proposes five specific measures.
First, deepen the integrated innovation of IPv6 in scenarios such as large model training and inference, and AI agent interconnection and collaboration;
Second, explore IPv6-based intelligent native network architecture and promote the evolution of networks towards high-level autonomous intelligence;
Third, research and promote the innovative evolution of the IPv6-based intelligent Internet;
Fourth, promote generative large model applications to support IPv6 access, and research incorporating IPv6 requirements into the filing of generative AI services;
Fifth, explore IPv6-based AI agent identification technology to promote the integrated development of IPv6 and AI agent applications.
Hundred-Billion-Level Market Opens Up,Industrial Chain Ushers in Multiple Opportunities
The "Implementation Plan" proposes to accelerate the integrated innovation of IPv6 with 6G, digital twins, quantum information, and other fields, and to synchronously deploy IPv6 in the construction of Internet of Vehicles (IoV), Industrial Internet, satellite Internet, and blockchain networks. This layout will release predictable development opportunities for the entire industrial chain.
Coupled with the evolution of the IPv6 single stack and the promotion of forming a network service and application system dominated by IPv6, a hundred-billion-level market space is opening up. On the demand side, IPv6 transformation in IDC machine rooms, computing power centers, and intelligent computing centers continues to drive demand; the rapid development of the IoT, Industrial Internet, and Internet of Vehicles has led to an exponential growth in the number of connected devices. On the supply side, the domestic IPv6 industrial chain is basically mature, with independent and controllable product solutions ranging from chips and operating systems to network equipment and terminals. The release of demand in the IPv6 industrial chain is not a one-time explosion, but a predictable growth lasting for several years.
Different market entities will precisely benefit from the IPv6 upgrade wave. Gao Wei stated that for telecom operators, the integration of IPv6 and 6G spawns new network architecture demands, opening up new space for infrastructure construction; for chip and equipment manufacturers, digital twin and quantum information scenarios spawn the market for IPv6-supported low-power chips, modules, and new terminals; for cloud service providers and computing power enterprises, IPv6 empowers the interconnection and scheduling of computing power networks, and technologies such as SRv6 bring business opportunities for intelligent scheduling; for data circulation enterprises, IPv6 provides underlying support for the national data infrastructure, opening up a new track for data element circulation.
Gao Wei emphasized that IPv6 requirements should be synchronously incorporated during the planning stage of new-generation information infrastructure, promoting IPv6-supported low-power chips and modules, driving terminal devices to enable IPv6 by default, and building "IPv6+" industry private networks.
At the same time, he also reminded that the industry development still faces challenges such as insufficient IPv6 support capabilities of terminal devices, high difficulty in transforming existing equipment, imperfect industry standards, and lack of cross-domain coordination mechanisms. It is necessary to further improve IoT terminal technical standards, leverage the trade-in policy to guide replacements, strengthen IPv6 monitoring and evaluation, and select key areas to pilot single-stack applications to form replicable experience.
Deepening IPv6 Innovative Applications,Consolidating the Strategic Cornerstone of Digital Infrastructure
With the support of top-level planning, China's IPv6 development prospects are broad, but it still faces multiple challenges: the endogenous development momentum of IPv6 is still insufficient, overly relying on policy-driven approaches; the IPv6 protection capabilities of security products are still relatively lagging; the management systems and standard systems adapting to IPv6 in industry informatization construction are imperfect; and talent reserves are insufficient.
Addressing industry pain points, Gao Wei proposed four optimization paths:
First, strengthen "IPv6+" technological innovation and industry implementation to tap into the technological advantages of IPv6;
Second, strengthen research on native security and the upgrade of security products;
Third, promote the incorporation of IPv6 requirements into informatization construction requirements in government procurement and industry management systems;
Fourth, incorporate IPv6 into higher education and vocational qualification systems to cultivate talents.
The competitiveness of network infrastructure determines the upper limit of digital economy development.
In the intelligent era, building a "more intelligent, more secure, and more endogenous" IPv6 network in China is not only a necessary connection infrastructure for the intelligent era but also a strategic cornerstone for the high-quality development of the digital economy.
Editor-in-Charge/Layout: Mei Yaxin
Proofreader: Mei Yaxin
Supervisor: Liu Qicheng