The 《信息通信行业发展"十五五"规划》 is the sectoral five-year plan for China's information and communications industry over 2026–2030, issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工业和信息化部, MIIT) as circular 工信部规〔2026〕188号 through its Department of Information and Communications Development. The circular carries two dates: it is signed and dated August 12, 2026 (成文日期 2026-08-12), and was released publicly on September 7, 2026 (发布日期 2026-09-07) (Source: miit.gov.cn).
It is a communications-industry plan, not an AI plan. Its subject is networks, spectrum, submarine and terrestrial cables, satellites, emergency communications, telecom market regulation, network and data security, telecom-fraud control, the industrial internet and 6G, with intelligent computing appearing as one of thirteen headline indicators. It states that it is made "in accordance with" the national 15th Five-Year Plan outline adopted by the National People's Congress, and is therefore an implementing instrument under that national plan rather than a substitute for it (see US-China AI Competition: Different Races, Different Metrics). The plan is captured in the original Chinese; MIIT publishes no English version at this address, and English renderings below are working glosses.
Headline indicators
Column 1 (专栏 1) sets thirteen indicators against a 2025 baseline and a 2030 target, with bracketed figures giving the five-year cumulative change.
| # | Indicator | 2025 | 2030 | 5-year change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Industry revenue (trillion yuan) | 3.8 | 4.1 | 1.5% annual |
| 2 | Cumulative information-infrastructure investment (trillion yuan) | 3.7 | 3.8 | 〔0.1〕 |
| 3 | Telecom business volume growth (%) | 9 | — | 7 |
| 4 | R&D intensity (%) | 4.7 | 4.8 | 〔0.1〕 |
| 5 | Decline in CO₂ per unit telecom business volume (%) | 6 | 17 | — |
| 6 | PUE, newly built large and hyperscale computing facilities | 1.25 | <1.2 | 〔>0.05〕 |
| 7 | 5G (incl. 5G-A) base stations per 10,000 people | 34 | 50 | 〔16〕 |
| 8 | 50G-PON ports (10,000s) | 2 | 100 | 〔98〕 |
| 9 | Intelligent computing scale (EFLOPS) | 1,590 | 9,800 | 〔8,210〕 |
| 10 | Advanced storage capacity (EB) | 540 | 1,700 | 〔1,160〕 |
| 11 | 5G (incl. 5G-A) user penetration (%) | 85.7 | 95 | 〔9.3〕 |
| 12 | Gigabit-plus broadband users (100 millions) | 2.4 | 3.2 | 〔0.8〕 |
| 13 | Network terminal connections (100 millions) | 54 | 65 | 〔11〕 |
The intelligent-computing indicator is a rise of roughly 6.2 times over five years from the plan's own 2025 baseline of 1,590 EFLOPS. Figures for intermediate months reported elsewhere are a separate series and are not derived from this baseline. The table's own notes state that revenue, cumulative investment and R&D intensity include data from basic telecom carriers and from internet enterprises above designated size.
Compute infrastructure
Task 2 ("打造高效协同的算力设施") directs construction of a national integrated computing network organized as a "hub–region–edge" tiered system, with "orderly deployment of ten-thousand-card, hundred-thousand-card and above intelligent computing clusters" (有序部署万卡、十万卡及以上智算集群), on-demand deployment of inference computing facilities, and "greatly increased adaptation to domestically produced computing chips" (加大力度适配国产算力芯片). It also calls for automated monitoring and supply-demand matching of compute, research on space-based computing, and a compute standards and evaluation system.
Column 3 adds 400G-and-above transmission deployment, direct fibre links, completion of computing-internet identifiers, and a "green computing" evaluation system with the issuance of green-computing certificates under study. The plan pairs compute with power throughout: it directs coordinated compute-electricity development including direct green-power connection, source-grid-load-storage models and efficient storage. Public-compute measures include full interconnection of the China Computing Platform, an inclusive-compute programme for small and medium enterprises, and a unified national market for computing services.
The agent internet
Column 5 (专栏 5 智能体互联网络建设) sets out a programme to build state identity and control infrastructure for AI agents, in four parts:
- Agent network identifier system. Upgrade the internet domain-name system to establish an "internet agent identity identification system," apply blockchain and electronic certification to trusted identity authentication, build internet gateways, and construct base capabilities for "agent registration management, identity authentication, ownership determination, and address resolution" (智能体注册管理、身份认证、权属认定、寻址解析).
- Agent network facilities. Build a technical-standards system for agent internetworking, with verification and application promotion.
- Global interconnection. Establish international nodes for agent-internet service facilities "with the capability to serve agents globally," achieving interconnection "with mainstream international technical systems" (与主流国际技术体系的互联互通).
- Agent cyberspace control system. Build "monitoring, early-warning and security-control capability over the full lifecycle of agents" (对智能体全生命周期的监测预警与安全管控能力).
The regulatory counterpart appears in task 10, which commits to establishing "management systems for intelligent information services and the agent internet" (建立智能信息服务和智能体互联网管理制度). Task 4 frames the whole as "accelerating development of the agent internet" to build "a new generation of internet infrastructure integrating intelligence and networks."
AI security and telecom-fraud control
Section four of the plan treats network and data security. Task 15 commits to "strengthening security-vulnerability management for artificial intelligence products" (强化人工智能产品安全漏洞管理) and to "AI + cybersecurity" special evaluations and AI defensive exercises. Task 17 commits to "deepening construction of an industry AI security governance standards system" and to an integrated system of AI security situational awareness, risk early warning and emergency response. Task 18 names four key technologies for research: deep-synthesis forgery detection (深度合成鉴伪), computing-facility protection, training-data protection (训练数据保护), and agent security (智能体安全).
Task 19 addresses telecom fraud, committing to an "AI-driven anti-fraud technical defence system." Column 12 makes this an "AI + anti-fraud" special project (人工智能+反诈专项工程) that includes building an anti-fraud vertical large model (反诈垂类大模型) to improve monitoring, identification and blocking of fraud-related resources, and research on a multimodal risk-perception engine.
6G and industry applications
Column 6 sets 6G research priorities that include network-native AI (网络原生 AI), integrated communications-sensing-intelligent-computing, "token communication" (词元（Token）通信), and data services, alongside ultra-large-scale antennas, integrated sensing and communication, satellite-terrestrial integration, energy saving, and spectrum sharing across orbital tiers. The plan directs participation in international 6G standards work and technical trials through the IMT-2030 (6G) promotion group, and says commercial 6G deployment will be launched "at an appropriate time."
Column 7 directs development of AI-capable routers, switches, security devices and intelligent network management systems, and of operating systems based on OpenHarmony and similar bases supporting agent communication and environmental sensing. Task 20 supports "AI + manufacturing," and column 13 directs integration of the industrial-internet identifier resolution system with "industrial agents." Task 10 commits to "deepening AI-assisted approval" in telecom market access, and column 9 to piloting an "AI + market access" application providing intelligent question-answering, assisted approval and data dashboards.
Governance, opening and implementation
Task 9 covers management of internet basic resources, telecom numbering, spectrum and industry data. Task 10 covers market-access reform, competition rules for the basic telecom market, platform-economy regulation, and an integrated "managing the network through the network" (以网管网) supervisory capability. Section six directs international submarine and terrestrial cable construction — including study of a BRICS submarine-cable network and corridors toward South and Southeast Asia, Central and West Asia, and China-Russia-Europe routes — participation in ITU and 3GPP standardization, phased opening of the telecom sector including expanded free-trade-zone pilots, and support for Chinese firms building 5G, computing, AI and satellite communications infrastructure in emerging markets. Section three provides for dynamic monitoring, a mid-term assessment, and a final assessment of implementation.
Provenance
Fetched from www.miit.gov.cn under the Ministry's government-affairs disclosure path for policy documents, with the page's structured header self-corroborating the issuing body, title, document number, signing date, release date and issuing department; page metadata reports the State Council's registered site identifier for MIIT (Source: miit.gov.cn). The plan body was fetched in full — 20 of 20 pages — from the PDF attachment embedded on that same notice page, so provenance is unbroken. Headline figures were independently corroborated by Sinocism (September 8, 2026), which quotes the circular's opening sentence, and by Chinese-language reports of September 7–8, 2026 giving the 4.1 trillion yuan revenue and 9,800 EFLOPS targets.
PDF extraction of the column boxes produced ragged cells where the source lays text across merged cells, and a small number of lines are clipped at box edges; those cells are reproduced in the raw capture as extracted rather than reconstructed, and the affected passages are not relied on above.
Relationships
- related: Chinese AI Policy — the policy context this plan implements at sector level.
- related: US-China AI Competition: Different Races, Different Metrics — the compute-scale and domestic-chip commitments bear on the comparison drawn there.
- related: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) — the issuing ministry.
- related: Agentic AI — the agent-identity and lifecycle-control programme in column 5 targets the systems described there.
- related: Export Controls (AI) — the domestic-chip adaptation commitment responds to constrained access to foreign accelerators.