BEIJING — China will optimize the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6)-based network access capability this year, and its number of active IPv6 connections is expected to hit 1.15 billion by the end of 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on March 23.

The mobile network IPv6 traffic is expected to account for more than 10 percent of the total by the end of 2020, the MIIT said in an online statement.

The IPv6 is considered the next generation of the internet, allowing much higher theoretical limits on the number of IP addresses than the current IPv4 system.

To speed up the IPv6 end-to-end connectivity and improve the scale of IPv6 active users and network traffic, the MIIT has decided to launch the special action to improve IPv6 end-to-end connectivity in 2020, the statement said.

China issued a plan to encourage large-scale adoption of the IPv6 network in 2017. According to the plan, by the end of 2025, network and terminal devices will fully support the adoption of IPv6 in China, and it will have the largest number of IPv6 users in the world by the end of 2025.