The number of AI users in China has more than doubled

According to a report published by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the number of people using generative artificial intelligence systems reached 515 million in June 2025, up from 249 million in December 2024.

In the first six months of this year, 266 million people started using artificial intelligence systems, and the number of users more than doubled compared to last year.

The report stated that the main reason for the increase was the increase in the logical reasoning capabilities of artificial intelligence systems in this period and the adaptability of these capabilities to a large number of practical application scenarios.

It was emphasized that the decrease in model development costs and the fact that artificial intelligence companies develop lighter models in terms of data load and processor requirements and launch products that increase end-user interaction with this technology were also effective in this increase.

USAGE IS CONTINUOUSLY INCREASING

The report noted that the rate of productive artificial intelligence usage, which was 18.8 percent at the end of last year, increased to 36.5 percent in the first 6 months.

The report, which emphasizes that the use of artificial intelligence is most common among the young and middle-aged population, shared the information that users aged 19 and under constitute 33.8 percent of all users, 21 percent of those aged 20-29, 19.8 percent of those aged 30-39, and 25.4 percent of those aged 40 and over.

The report stated that 29.8 percent of users are high school graduates, while 28.9 percent are university and graduate graduates.

90 percent of users who participated in the survey, to which 30,000 people from 31 provinces and regions in mainland China responded, stated that their first choice in artificial intelligence was models produced in China.

Due to online access restrictions in China, foreign-produced AI models like ChatGPT cannot be used without a VPN.

The artificial intelligence sector is developing rapidly in China

The global success of some major language models emerging from China this year highlighted the intense competition and rapid development in the country's artificial intelligence sector.

The Chinese company DeepSeek released its open-source model R1, which it developed at a low cost and using a small number of chips compared to other artificial intelligence companies, on January 20. The model in question performed better than its US-developed counterparts such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude models in international tests.

The artificial intelligence model, which quickly became widely used worldwide, became the most downloaded artificial intelligence application in app stores, surpassing the US-based ChatGPT.

The company, which developed an open source Large Language Model (LLM) with a low budget and limited computer power, has become "rivals" with the industry's largest developers, questioning the costs of technology companies spending billions of dollars in this field and causing technology stocks to lose value in the US stock markets.

The success of the artificial intelligence model was compared to the launch of the Sputnik satellite by Soviet Russia in 1957, which was seen as the development that started the space race between the US and the Soviet Union, and it was commented that this was the "Sputnik moment" that would start the race in the field of artificial intelligence in the competition between the US and China.

Apart from DeepSeek, Alibaba's Qwen, ByteDance's Doubao and Baidu's Ernie artificial intelligence models are also widely used in China.