IPv9 (China)

IPv9 (China), also stylized as IPV9, refers to a 2004 proposal for an alternative internet addressing system developed by the Chinese company 十进制网 (em777.net), which repurposed 10-digit telephone numbers as domain identifiers through a modified Domain Name System (DNS) that intercepted numeric-only queries and routed them to proprietary root servers resolving to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses.^[1][2] The system was marketed as a next-generation protocol with a 256-bit address space—expanding beyond IPv6's 128 bits—to enable greater address capacity and purported compatibility with existing IPv4 and IPv6 infrastructures, while tying resolution to registered Chinese phone numbers for enhanced national oversight.^[2][3] Announced amid claims of government endorsement from China's Ministry of Information Industry, the initiative quickly faced skepticism for reinventing established concepts like ENUM (a standard for telephone number mapping to URIs) without substantive innovation, and it was disowned by official sources within days, with experts at institutions like Fudan University denying any national deployment or awareness.^[1][3] Proponents framed it as a tool for cyber sovereignty to counter perceived U.S. dominance in global DNS and IP standards, but no evidence of operational rollout emerged, and it was abandoned shortly thereafter.^[2][4] Despite sporadic academic papers in the 2020s promoting IPV9 variants with claims of superior security, efficiency, and IoT scalability, these appear disconnected from practical implementation and lack peer-reviewed validation outside Chinese circles, while China has prioritized IPv6 dual-stack upgrades, targeting full enablement by 2025 without reference to IPv9.^[5][4][6] The episode highlights tensions over internet governance but underscores IPv9's failure to achieve technical or international traction, remaining a footnote in efforts to localize network control.^[2][4]

History

Origins in Early 2000s

In the late 1990s, Shanghai-based researcher Xie Jianping proposed the foundational concepts for what would become known as IPV9, emphasizing a method of assigning addresses to computers using whole digital codes in decimal format to address perceived limitations in binary-based protocols.^[7][8] In December 1998, Xie registered a copyright with China's National Copyright Administration for "the method of unified compilation of digital domain names," which formed the core intellectual property claim for the protocol's addressing scheme.^[7] This approach used an uppercase "V" in IPV9 to differentiate it from established protocols like IPv4 and IPv6, positioning it as a purportedly independent innovation aimed at enabling vast address spaces through decimal arithmetic rather than hexadecimal or binary.^[7] Formal institutional momentum for IPV9 began in early 2001 when China's Ministry of Information Industry (MIIT) issued notification信科函〔2001〕96 on September 2001, establishing the Decimal Network Standard Working Group to develop and standardize the protocol.^[4][9] Xie Jianping, director of the Shanghai General Chemical Technology Research Institute, was appointed as the group's head, reflecting state-backed interest in pursuing network technologies aligned with domestic priorities for address abundance and potential sovereignty.^[4][3] The working group's mandate focused on integrating decimal addressing with digital domain names, claiming compatibility with existing infrastructure while promising scalability for billions of devices through tree-like and mesh network structures.^[9] Early development occurred amid limited transparency and technical scrutiny, with Xie's patents—such as those filed in 2002 for embedding IPV9 in Windows platforms—serving as primary documentation rather than peer-reviewed standards.^[10] Critics within China's academic community, including experts from the China Education and Research Network (CERNET), noted from the outset that IPV9's decimal foundation echoed unadopted IETF proposals like RFC 1606 (an April 1, 1994, document humorously advocating decimal IPs without serious implementation), raising questions about originality and feasibility.^[11] Despite these concerns, proponents like Xie argued it addressed real-world constraints in IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 adoption delays, though no international standards body recognized it, and domestic trials remained confined to promotional demonstrations rather than widespread deployment.^[4][12]

Key Proposals and Milestones (2001–2010)

In August 2001, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology established the Decimal Network Standards Working Group to advance the development of IPv9, focusing on decimal-based addressing mechanisms to expand network capacity beyond IPv4 limitations.^[13] This initiative built on foundational concepts proposed by researcher Xie Jianping, emphasizing whole digital code assignment for computer addresses to enhance security and sovereignty.^[14] By 2004, IPv9 gained prominence through announcements claiming widespread domestic adoption as a next-generation protocol compatible with IPv4 and IPv6, with Xie Jianping leading the Ten-Digit Network Technology Standard Team.^[15] These reports highlighted its use of 10-digit numeric domains for routing, purportedly enabling a larger address space via decimal encoding rather than hexadecimal.^[12] However, international networking experts noted that IPv9 functioned primarily as a modified DNS interception for numeric domains, not a comprehensive layer-3 protocol overhaul, leading to skepticism about the scale of deployment.^[1] Throughout the late 2000s, Chinese research efforts under this framework explored IPv9's datagram design and routing innovations, including hybrid IP-circuit communication and address encryption for improved verification, though no global standardization body recognized it as a successor to IPv6.^[16] Government subsidies supported these proposals amid tensions over ICANN's domain authority, positioning IPv9 as a tool for national network control.^[17]

Later Developments and Claims (2010–Present)

Chinese researchers persisted in promoting IPV9 concepts through academic publications in the 2010s and early 2020s, framing it as a sovereign alternative to IPv6 with expanded 256-bit addressing, hybrid IP-circuit communication, and enhanced security via address encryption. A 2020 review asserted that China had established a comprehensive IPV9 ecosystem, including hardware such as core routers, edge routers, and protocol converters, alongside software for applications in sectors like smart cities and IoT. These publications, often affiliated with Chinese institutions, emphasized IPV9's compatibility with IPv4/IPv6 while prioritizing national controllability to address perceived foreign dependencies.^[18] Claims of international validation surfaced in Chinese literature; for example, a 2020 paper stated that U.S. government agencies confirmed China's legal and technical ownership of IPV9 core technologies in 2011, positioning it as a foundation for future networks independent of global standards bodies like the IETF. However, such assertions lack corroboration from U.S. or neutral sources and appear inconsistent with documented U.S.-China technology tensions, suggesting promotional exaggeration rather than empirical fact. Similarly, state-linked reports from the mid-2000s onward alleged civil and commercial deployments, but these predate or overlap with post-2010 rhetoric without providing verifiable metrics like node counts or traffic data.^[8] International assessments consistently view these developments as unsubstantiated, with the protocol effectively abandoned after initial 2004 proposals tied to telephone number integration failed to gain traction even domestically—China's own experts disavowed the hype at the time. As of 2022, authoritative internet registries described IPv9 as defunct, citing no ongoing implementation or standardization efforts. Recent analyses in 2025 echo this, noting persistent academic claims but zero evidence of operational networks, interoperability testing, or adoption amid China's pivot to other sovereignty initiatives like New IP proposals to the ITU. The absence of peer-reviewed, independent benchmarks or global interoperability undermines IPV9's viability, rendering it more a symbol of network nationalism than a functional protocol.^[2][4]

Technical Specifications

Addressing and Protocol Design

IPv9's addressing scheme utilizes a 256-bit address length, doubling the capacity of IPv6's 128-bit addresses and enabling an expansive address space through a decimal-based coding system employing digits 0-9.^[19] This design incorporates a novel addressing mechanism that merges IP addresses with digital domains, allowing numeric identifiers—such as 10-digit telephone numbers—to function directly as navigable web addresses without requiring traditional DNS resolution.^[2][20] Proponents claim this facilitates simpler user access and ties into China's telephony infrastructure for enhanced national integration.^[21] The protocol architecture builds on a hybrid TCP/IP/M framework, fusing packet-switched IP protocols with circuit-switching elements to support direct transmission of multimedia data across three layers while maintaining compatibility with existing routers.^[9] Core components include dedicated sub-protocols for addressing, messaging, transition between protocol versions, and mobile communications, aiming to enable seamless interoperability among IPv4, IPv6, and IPv9 environments through transitional mechanisms.^[8] This structure emphasizes decimal arithmetic for computations, diverging from binary-dominant designs in prior IP versions, with assertions of improved efficiency in routing and resource allocation for large-scale networks.^[22] Innovations in protocol design focus on a restructured address architecture that supports virtual IP assignments and direct routing assumptions, purportedly reducing latency for numeric domain access and enhancing scalability for IoT and high-density applications.^[7] However, these features remain experimental, with implementations limited to pilot tests rather than global standardization, as the protocol lacks endorsement from bodies like the IETF.^[9] Research papers highlight potential for cost savings and security enhancements over IPv6, though independent verification of performance claims is sparse.^[8]

Compatibility with Existing Protocols

IPv9 proponents, primarily from Chinese research institutions, assert that the protocol incorporates mechanisms for backward compatibility with IPv4 and IPv6 to minimize disruption during transition. This includes support for dual-stack routers that process both IPv9 and legacy IP packets, enabling coexistence on shared infrastructure without requiring immediate hardware overhauls.^[9][24] Address resolution in IPv9 leverages DNS mappings that can direct traffic to IPv4 or IPv6 endpoints, allowing IPv9 domains to interface with existing networks via encapsulation or translation layers.^[1] Tunneling techniques further enable IPv9 packets to traverse IPv4 links, preserving subnet configurations and reducing migration costs compared to direct IPv6 adoption.^[25] The protocol's decimal-based address notation, using numerals 0-9 with separators like "[", is described as structurally alignable with IPv4 dotted-decimal formats for parsing compatibility.^[9] These features aim to address IPv6's reported deployment challenges, such as high retrofit expenses, by permitting incremental rollout where IPv9 overlays existing topologies.^[24] However, empirical interoperability remains confined to controlled domestic trials, as IPv9 lacks endorsement from international bodies like the IETF, limiting seamless global packet exchange with standard IPv4/IPv6 ecosystems.^[4] Independent analyses question the depth of this compatibility, noting reliance on proprietary extensions that may introduce latency or security variances in cross-protocol routing.^[7]

Claimed Innovations and Features

Proponents assert that IPv9 provides an enormous address space using 256-decimal-digit encoding, enabling up to 10^{256} unique addresses to accommodate global connectivity demands for roughly 750 years, including every conceivable device from sensors to nanoscale elements.^{[26] [7]} This vastly exceeds IPv6's practical capacity of approximately 2^{128} addresses, with claims of recyclability and variable-length support (16 to 1024 bits) to minimize routing overhead in expansive or mobile networks.^[7] A central claimed feature is the integration of digital domain names directly with IP addresses, where numeric strings serve dual purposes without requiring separate DNS resolution, purportedly accelerating access and fusing networks with physical identifiers like barcodes, RFID tags, telephone numbers, and electronic labels.^[26] This unification extends addressing to IoT ecosystems, sensors, and even atomic or cosmic scales, enabling real-time object-oriented networking and real-name authentication for enhanced traceability.^[26] The protocol allegedly maintains backward compatibility with IPv4 and IPv6 through dual-stack routers and transitional mechanisms, while introducing the TCP/IP/M architecture that blends packet switching with virtual and real circuit switching for superior handling of bandwidth-intensive streams, such as large-scale video or IMAX broadcasts.^{[7] [27]} Geo-spatial clustering in addressing embeds location codes (e.g., country and regional identifiers) to produce compact, hierarchical routing tables, reducing congestion and transmission costs by over 50% in domestic scenarios.^{[7] [27]} Security innovations include dual encryption of source and destination addresses, a zero-trust paradigm mandating pre-communication verification, and distributed management to bolster controllability and sovereignty, with independent root servers (e.g., letters N-Z) shielding against foreign dependencies.^{[7] [27]} Automatic configuration extends DHCP principles, and the decimal-independent text format purportedly simplifies human interaction while supporting high-speed, low-latency applications without overhauling existing infrastructure.^[7]

Motivations and Strategic Goals

Pursuit of Network Sovereignty

China's development of IPv9 has been framed by its proponents as a strategic response to perceived vulnerabilities in the global internet architecture, particularly the dominance of U.S.-influenced standards and institutions like the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).^[17] Researchers and officials argue that reliance on IPv4 and IPv6 exposes China to risks of political interference, security threats, and economic dependencies, as the U.S. maintains significant control over root servers and protocol evolution.^[28] IPv9 is positioned as enabling a sovereign network with independent intellectual property rights, allowing China to build an autonomous communication infrastructure decoupled from foreign oversight.^[18] Central to this pursuit is the goal of "cyber sovereignty," which Chinese discourse defines as territorial control over digital infrastructure to prevent external exploitation or suppression.^[27] Proponents, including key inventors like Xie Jianping, claim IPv9 addresses these issues by introducing a new addressing scheme and protocol stack that prioritizes national security and controllability, purportedly shielding against U.S.-led cyber pressures observed in events like the 2010s tensions over ICANN's role.^[29] Government subsidies for IPv9 research, initiated amid frustrations with international governance, underscore this aim, with the protocol envisioned as a foundation for a "future network" where China dictates standards for domestic and potentially allied systems.^[17] This aligns with broader policies emphasizing indigenization of technology to mitigate risks from global supply chains and protocol dependencies.^[17] Despite these ambitions, IPv9's sovereignty claims remain largely aspirational, as the protocol lacks endorsement from global standards bodies, limiting its influence to experimental domestic networks.^[4] Chinese academic and state-linked publications assert that IPv9's deployment would secure "network sovereignty" by enabling self-reliant addressing for vast scales, from devices to hypothetical cellular-level applications, thereby reducing vulnerabilities to foreign sanctions or disruptions.^[28] Critics, however, note that without interoperability with existing protocols, true sovereignty may foster isolation rather than empowerment, though proponents counter that this independence is essential for national resilience against perceived U.S. hegemony in cyberspace.^[4][27]

Response to IPv4/IPv6 Limitations

Proponents of IPv9, a protocol developed by Chinese researchers since the late 1990s, argue that it directly counters IPv4's address exhaustion, which limits the protocol to approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses (2^32), insufficient for global Internet growth and IoT expansion.^[7] IPv9 employs a default 256-bit address space (2^256 addresses), vastly exceeding IPv6's 128-bit (2^128) capacity, with scalability up to 2048 bits or even 10^256-1 addresses in a 42-layer hierarchical design, purportedly sufficient to assign unique identifiers to every cellular entity on Earth and sustain demand for 750 years.^{[7] [30]} This expansion eliminates reliance on address leasing mechanisms that have exacerbated IPv4 shortages, such as annual U.S.-controlled allocations costing China billions in bandwidth fees.^[28] Regarding IPv6, IPv9 addresses claimed shortcomings in fixed-length addressing, structural hierarchy flaws leading to routing inefficiencies, and incomplete backward compatibility with IPv4, which has hindered widespread adoption despite IPv6's theoretical scalability.^[7] IPv9 introduces variable-length addresses (from 16 to 2048 bits) with decimal notation and bracketed representations (e.g., for 256-bit segments), enabling direct human-to-machine parsing without hexadecimal complexity or zero-compression overhead, while maintaining compatibility modes like embedding IPv4 dotted decimals or IPv6 hex sequences.^[30] Proponents further claim IPv9 resolves IPv6's security vulnerabilities—such as the "communicate first, then verify" model and absence of native encryption—through dual-layer encryption, pre-communication verification, and a zero-trust architecture that embeds authentication in the protocol stack.^{[7] [28]} Additional responses include geo-spatial address clustering to minimize routing table sizes compared to IPv6's global aggregation challenges, and support for massive-scale applications like ubiquitous IoT without the QoS limitations of IPv4 or IPv6's multicast inefficiencies.^[7] These features are positioned as enabling a sovereign network infrastructure, free from dependencies on foreign root DNS servers that underpin IPv4 and IPv6 operations.^[28] However, such assertions originate primarily from Chinese academic sources and lack independent international validation or standardization by bodies like the IETF.^[4]

Alignment with National Digital Policies

IPv9's proponents, including researcher Xie Jianping, position the protocol as a tool for advancing China's cyber sovereignty, a core tenet of national digital policies articulated in frameworks like the 2017 Cybersecurity Law. This law mandates that network operators safeguard critical information infrastructure through "secure and controllable" technologies, emphasizing state oversight of data flows and indigenous innovation to mitigate foreign influence over core internet protocols.^[31] Advocates claim IPv9's independent 256-bit addressing and decimal notation enable granular control over network resources, purportedly aligning with the law's requirements for multi-level protection schemes and localization of key infrastructure, thereby reducing reliance on IPv6, which they argue exposes China to external vulnerabilities due to its origins in international standards bodies dominated by Western interests.^[28] This purported alignment extends to broader strategies such as the "Digital China" initiative, launched via a 2017 State Council outline to foster a sovereign digital economy by 2035, including advancements in core technologies and network security. IPv9 supporters assert it supports these goals by facilitating "network destiny community" concepts, allowing China to construct isolated yet interoperable systems for applications like digital currency issuance under state control, as proposed in related financial network models.^[32] However, such claims lack substantiation in official policy implementation; major state-backed networks like CERNET prioritize IPv6 deployment for compatibility and global interoperability, viewing IPv9 as non-standard and incompatible with established addressing norms.^[33] Critics within China's technical community highlight a disconnect, noting that IPv9's fringe status—lacking endorsement from bodies like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology—undermines any practical contribution to policies favoring scalable, internationally viable solutions. Official responses, such as the 2004 Ministry of Information Industry dismissal of IPv9 hype as marginal, underscore that national priorities emphasize IPv6 migration over unproven alternatives, with IPv9 often linked to unsubstantiated commercial schemes rather than policy-driven adoption.^[3] Thus, while rhetorically tied to sovereignty imperatives, IPv9 remains peripheral to enacted digital strategies focused on pragmatic enhancements to existing protocols.

Development Process

Government and Institutional Involvement

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) of China has played a central role in IPv9 development through its establishment of the Decimal Network Standard Working Group, tasked with standardizing the protocol, also referred to as the Decimal Network or ten-based addressing system.^[34] This group collaborates with entities like the Decimal Network Information Technology Co., focusing on protocol specifications compatible with existing IPv4 and IPv6 infrastructures.^[35] Predecessor bodies, including the Ministry of Information Industry, provided early support to IPv9 proponents such as the Decimal Network organization (formerly ADDA), issuing press releases endorsing the technology as a means to enhance network sovereignty.^[1] Government subsidies for research into alternative internet protocols, motivated by tensions with bodies like ICANN, facilitated initial explorations of IPv9 concepts dating back to the early 2000s.^[17] Institutional efforts have included demonstration projects in provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, where IPv9 address spaces and root name servers were reportedly implemented under official guidance to test sovereign network capabilities.^[18] These initiatives align with broader state directives for self-reliant digital infrastructure, though practical integration remains tied to domestic research entities rather than widespread regulatory mandates.^[28]

Key Proponents and Research Efforts

Xie Jianping, director of the Shanghai Institute of Chemical Engineering, is recognized as the primary inventor of IPv9, having proposed the protocol in the late 1990s as a decimal-based addressing system aimed at enhancing China's network capabilities.^[36][3] His work emphasized compatibility with existing TCP/IP while introducing circuit-switching elements for improved multimedia transmission, distinguishing IPv9 through uppercase "V" notation to differentiate from IPv4 and IPv6.^[7] In September 2001, China's Ministry of Information Industry established the Decimal Network Standard Working Group, also known as the IPv9 Standard Working Group, to oversee protocol standardization, including management of root name servers, domain name systems, and IP address allocation.^[9] This group, under Xie Jianping's influence, coordinated early research efforts, with the Shanghai General Chemical Technology Research Institute conducting foundational protocol studies around 2000.^[18] By 2002, the Chinese Academy of Sciences had engaged with these proposals, inviting presentations on IPv9 concepts.^[3] Research efforts produced several technical outputs, including eight Chinese patents by the Decimal Network team—two for inventions and six for utility models—covering addressing methods and network architecture.^[13] Key publications from 2019 onward detailed IPv9's three-layer system for direct audio-video data transmission and hybrid TCP/IP-circuit switching integration, published in journals such as the International Journal of Advanced Network, Monitoring and Controls.^[9] These efforts framed IPv9 as a sovereignty tool, though adoption remained limited to domestic prototypes without broad international validation.^[28]

Standardization Attempts

In June 2016, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued several domestic industry standards aimed at implementing IPv9 nationwide, including SJ/T 11605 for addressing mechanisms and SJ/T 11604 for related protocol specifications.^[37] These standards were promoted by proponents as enabling hybrid IP-circuit switching and enhanced sovereignty features, with claims that they formed a basis for future ISO/IEC network standards.^[27] However, such assertions originated from Chinese academic and research publications, which exhibit promotional bias toward national initiatives, and no empirical evidence of ISO adoption has materialized.^[28] Internationally, no formal standardization efforts for China's IPv9 reached bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO); the protocol lacks recognition from these entities, distinguishing it from established versions like IPv6.^[4] Early hype in 2004, including state media reports of IPv9 replacing global IP infrastructure, was publicly disavowed by Chinese officials as a marginal research project rather than a national mandate.^[3] By 2022, assessments from regional internet registries described China's IPv9 as abandoned, with resources redirected toward IPv6 deployment.^[2] As of 2025, amid China's achievement of over 834 million active IPv6 users by June—representing substantial domestic infrastructure upgrades—no active international standardization pushes for IPv9 are documented, reflecting a pivot to compatible, globally interoperable protocols.^[38] Promotional literature continues to reference IPv9 standards for theoretical advancements, but practical deployment evidence remains absent, underscoring the initiative's confinement to domestic policy experimentation rather than global consensus-building.^[4]

Implementation and Adoption

Domestic Deployment Claims

In July 2004, China's state-controlled People's Daily reported that the country had widely adopted IPv9 as a next-generation Internet protocol compatible with IPv4 and IPv6, implementing it across civil and commercial sectors to address address exhaustion and enhance network capabilities.^[39] Proponents, including researcher Lou Peide, asserted that deployment efforts began as early as 2001, when China's Ministry of Information Industry (now Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) established a "Decimal Network IPv9 Standards Working Group," followed by official designation of IPv9 as the next-generation protocol in 2007, with progressive rollout in domestic networks for sovereignty and scalability.^[40] These claims emphasized IPv9's use of decimal addressing with up to $10^{256}$10256 addresses, purportedly enabling nationwide coverage and integration with existing infrastructure without disrupting IPv4 operations.^[22] Subsequent assertions by advocates, such as in 2020 forums and articles, maintained that IPv9 pilots and implementations were operational in select research and enterprise environments, including router prototypes and domain name systems modified for numerical addressing, as part of a "future network" initiative to achieve full domestic autonomy.^[41] For instance, claims highlighted experimental deployments in Beijing and Shanghai testbeds since the mid-2000s, with scalability to support IoT and high-density addressing for every "living cell," though no independent metrics on user scale, traffic volume, or geographic coverage were provided.^[5] By 2019, some reports reiterated ongoing "secret" governmental backing for IPv9 in secure networks, positioning it as a strategic alternative to foreign-dominated protocols.^[42] Despite these assertions, no official government announcements post-2007 have detailed measurable deployment milestones, such as connection counts or integration with major carriers like China Telecom, and national policy has prioritized IPv6 scale-up, with directives in 2024 mandating accelerated IPv6 adoption across telecoms to meet 2025 targets for ubiquitous infrastructure.^[43] Claims of IPv9's domestic prevalence have largely originated from individual researchers and non-state proponents rather than verified institutional data, contrasting with documented IPv6 growth to over 700 million users by 2023.^[38]

Commercial and Civil Applications

Proponents of China's IPv9 protocol asserted in 2004 that it had been formally adopted for civil and commercial use, with compatibility to IPv4 and IPv6 enabling broader network integration.^[44] These early announcements positioned IPv9 as a foundation for domestic applications in sectors requiring enhanced addressing capacity, such as emerging IoT deployments and national communication infrastructures.^[12] Subsequent reports from advocates highlight demonstration projects in regions including Beijing, Shanghai, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, where IPv9 address spaces and root name servers were purportedly established to support future network trials.^[18] Intended civil applications encompassed secure government networks and public sector data exchange, emphasizing sovereignty over foreign protocol dependencies, while commercial prospects targeted IoT ecosystems with claims of assigning unique addresses to individual cells or devices for granular control.^[28] However, these initiatives lack independent verification, with no documented interoperability testing or scalability data from neutral bodies. In practice, commercial pursuits have primarily manifested through investment promotions rather than operational deployments, including schemes soliciting funds from 100 yuan to 10,000 yuan per share for purported stakes in IPv9-enabled IoT ventures.^[45] Such efforts, recurring since at least 2000, have been exposed as fraudulent, exploiting nationalist sentiments without delivering functional products or revenue-generating applications.^[46] As of October 2025, empirical evidence indicates no substantive IPv9-based commercial services or civil infrastructures in operation, with China's internet backbone relying predominantly on IPv4 and IPv6 standards.^[4] Technical analyses describe IPv9 implementations as reliant on modified DNS interception for numeric domains, limiting viability for broad civil or commercial adoption due to incompatibility with global routing hardware and software ecosystems.^[1]

Technical Challenges Encountered

One primary technical challenge in the development of China's IPv9 proposal was achieving interoperability with the existing global Internet infrastructure, as it relied on a modified DNS system that intercepted all-numeric domain names and routed them to proprietary root servers, potentially conflicting with standard DNS resolution protocols like those defined by the IETF.^[1] This approach, intended to map 10-digit Chinese telephone numbers to IP addresses for services such as web navigation and FTP, introduced risks of resolution failures or security vulnerabilities when interfacing with IPv4 or IPv6 networks outside controlled environments.^[2] Expanding the IP address length to 256 bits—beyond IPv6's 128 bits, which experts deemed sufficient for foreseeable needs—imposed significant packet overhead, complicating routing efficiency and increasing transmission latency without addressing core exhaustion issues empirically observed in IPv4.^[3] Developers from Shanghai Jiuyao Digital Network Company claimed this would enable vast address spaces (up to 2^256), but the design lacked validation through widespread testing, leading to unproven scalability under high-traffic conditions.^[3] Standardization efforts faltered due to absence of formal allocation from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and no submission to international bodies like the IETF, rendering the protocol incompatible with global routing tables and BGP implementations.^[3] Domestic implementation claims, such as compatibility with existing routers via hybrid packet- and circuit-switching modes, encountered hurdles in backward compatibility, with reports indicating no verifiable large-scale deployments by 2004 and experts at institutions like Fudan University expressing unfamiliarity with operational prototypes.^[2] These issues contributed to the project's effective abandonment, as confirmed by Chinese Academy of Sciences researchers who highlighted practical deficiencies and minimal institutional support.^[3]

Reception and Criticisms

Domestic Expert Skepticism

Domestic experts in China, particularly those affiliated with major academic and research institutions, have consistently raised concerns about the technical validity, interoperability, and practical feasibility of IPv9 since its initial promotion around 2004. Qian Hualin, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Computer Network Information Center (CERNET), described IPv9 as unrelated to established IETF standards for IPv4 and IPv6, noting its proposal for decimal-based transmission that confuses physical layer elements with higher protocol layers.^[47] He further highlighted serious design flaws in IPv9, including its reliance on "digital domains" and assertions of IPv6 inadequacy, which garnered almost no support within the broader research community.^[22] Qian Hualin emphasized that IPv9's structure largely copies over 90% of IPv6 protocol content without meaningful innovation, positioning it as an insular project that risks isolating Chinese networks from the global internet rather than enhancing sovereignty through compatibility.^[48] In 2004, he reported that network experts at Fudan University in Shanghai were entirely unfamiliar with IPv9 and aware of no deployments in the region, underscoring its marginal status even domestically at the time of hype.^[3] This skepticism extended to critiques of conflating IP protocols with national security, as IETF remains an apolitical international body dominated by scientific consensus rather than geopolitical agendas.^[49] By 2010, Chinese media outlets amplified these doubts, with reports labeling IPv9's claims as potentially an "international joke" due to evident technical inconsistencies and lack of verifiable advancements, prompting responses from proponent Xie Jianping but failing to quell expert reservations.^[50] Industry professionals questioned its interoperability barriers and "self-sealing" approach, arguing it deviates from scalable, open standards like IPv6 without addressing core limitations such as address exhaustion through proven mechanisms.^[51] Persistent evaluations, including Qian's, frame IPv9 as speculative opportunism rather than rigorous engineering, with no evidence of adoption in critical infrastructure like CERNET or widespread academic validation.^[52]

International Technical Assessments

International technical standards organizations, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), have not recognized or standardized China's IPv9 protocol, viewing it as incompatible with established global routing architectures.^[4] The protocol's core mechanism—a modified Domain Name System (DNS) that intercepts numeric domain names (such as 10-digit telephone numbers) and resolves them via proprietary root servers to IPv4 or IPv6 addresses—lacks the open, interoperable design required for seamless integration into the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and other core internet infrastructure.^[1] This approach, proposed around 2004 by the Decimal Network group, introduces fragmentation risks by relying on non-standard resolution paths, potentially isolating domestic traffic from international peering points without widespread router firmware updates or bilateral agreements.^[2] Experts in network engineering have criticized IPv9 for failing to address IPv4 exhaustion more effectively than IPv6, which offers 128-bit addressing and has achieved partial global deployment since its 1998 specification. Claims of "decimal addressing" for enhanced sovereignty, such as linking addresses to national phone numbering plans, do not scale to the internet's hierarchical, autonomous system-based routing model, rendering cross-border connectivity inefficient or impossible without gateways.^[2] Assessments from bodies like the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) note that IPv9 gained no international traction and was effectively abandoned by Chinese authorities shortly after its announcement, with university researchers reporting no evidence of operational deployment.^[2] The protocol's hybrid claims—combining packet switching with circuit-like elements—have not been validated through independent simulations or field tests, contrasting with IPv6's extensive RFC-documented evolution.^[1] Furthermore, international analyses highlight IPv9's limited evolvability, as its proprietary elements preclude vendor-neutral implementation, unlike the open-source ethos of IETF protocols. No peer-reviewed studies outside Chinese-affiliated publications demonstrate superior performance in metrics like latency, throughput, or security over IPv6 extensions such as Segment Routing or QUIC.^[4] The initiative's emphasis on national control, including encrypted addressing schemes, raises concerns about deliberate non-interoperability, potentially exacerbating internet balkanization rather than fostering a unified namespace. Overall, global technical consensus deems IPv9 an experimental artifact rather than a viable successor, with its 2004 origins underscoring persistent gaps in achieving consensus-driven innovation.^[2][12]

Economic and Practical Critiques

Critics argue that deploying IPv9 would impose substantial economic burdens on China's telecommunications sector, requiring an estimated overhaul of existing IPv4 and IPv6 infrastructure, including router replacements, software updates, and network reconfigurations costing billions in yuan, without clear returns given IPv6's established global ecosystem.^[3][4] The protocol's emphasis on sovereignty features, such as embedded identifiers for content and user tracking, introduces additional overhead that could inflate operational costs for data centers and ISPs through increased processing demands and compliance requirements, diverting resources from efficiency-focused upgrades like 5G expansion.^[53][54] Moreover, the lack of international standardization means Chinese firms face higher export barriers and interoperability expenses, potentially reducing competitiveness in global markets reliant on TCP/IP norms, as evidenced by stalled "New IP" proposals at bodies like the ITU.^[53] On the practical front, IPv9's feasibility is undermined by unresolved compatibility issues with dominant protocols, necessitating complex translation layers or dual-stack operations that degrade performance and introduce latency, as highlighted in assessments of similar proprietary extensions.^[4][12] Despite claims of addressing routing scalability, the protocol offers no empirically superior mechanisms over BGP enhancements in IPv6, with sparse technical documentation fueling doubts about real-world deployment beyond pilot stages since early 2000s announcements.^[28][55] Practical adoption hurdles include talent shortages for proprietary training and vulnerability to single points of failure in sovereignty-centric architectures, which prioritize control over resilience, as critiqued in analyses of China's parallel network efforts.^[54] Limited evidence of commercial scalability, coupled with historical hype dismissals by Chinese authorities themselves, suggests IPv9 remains marginal, complicating integration with IoT and edge computing ecosystems optimized for IPv6.^[3][4]

Controversies

Hype Versus Reality

In 2004, media reports, including from state-affiliated outlets like Xinhua, promoted IPv9 as a revolutionary Chinese-developed protocol poised to supplant IPv4 and IPv6, featuring a 256-bit address space to address purported insufficiencies in IPv6's 128-bit scheme and enabling expansive future applications such as assigning addresses to individual cells or devices. Proponents, including researchers from Shanghai Jiuyao Digital Network Company, claimed compatibility with existing protocols via mechanisms like NAT-PT, integration of digital domain names linked to 10-digit telephone numbers for simplified navigation, and rapid deployment in commercial and civil networks, positioning it as a foundation for national cyber sovereignty.^[3][44] Chinese authorities swiftly distanced themselves from these assertions, with the Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences declaring IPv9 a marginal research initiative riddled with technical flaws, unsupported by any national standardization body or widespread governmental endorsement.^[3] Domestic experts at institutions like Fudan University professed ignorance of any operational rollout, while international assessments, including from Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, highlighted the absence of allocation by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and deemed it an unproven variant of IPv6 lacking interoperability rigor.^[2] Critically, IPv9's design introduced inefficiencies such as heightened packet overhead from extended headers and dependency on transitional compatibility layers, failing to demonstrate verifiable superiority in scalability, security, or performance over IPv6, which underwent global bottom-up refinement.^[3] No empirical evidence of large-scale domestic or international deployment has materialized, even as of 2025; instead, China's networking efforts have centered on IPv6 expansion, achieving 75.29% active user penetration by June 2025 through policy-driven infrastructure upgrades.^[56] Sporadic academic publications continue to advocate IPv9 for sovereignty gains, but these remain theoretical, confined to proponent circles without peer-validated implementation or adoption metrics.^[1]

Geopolitical Motivations and Control

China's pursuit of IPv9 stems from a strategic imperative to attain independent cyber sovereignty, addressing perceived vulnerabilities in the U.S.-centric internet architecture, including control over the DNS root server system and protocols like IPv4 and IPv6. Proponents within Chinese research circles contend that reliance on these systems exposes the nation to foreign political interference, surveillance, and economic dependencies, such as traffic charges funneled to U.S. entities exceeding 50% of information consumption costs.^[28] This motivation gained traction amid historical tensions with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), prompting Chinese government subsidies for IPv9 research as an alternative to Western-dominated governance structures.^[17] IPv9's design emphasizes national security by enabling a self-contained network infrastructure, including proprietary root servers, core routers, and expansive 256-to-2048-bit addressing schemes that obviate the need for leased foreign addresses. Advocates assert this breaks the U.S. monopoly on global IP standards, ensuring operational stability even if external connections are severed, thereby safeguarding data flows and financial systems like digital currencies under domestic top-level domains such as "chn."^[13] Such features underpin China's doctrine of cyber sovereignty, which prioritizes state authority over information flows and rejects universal norms in favor of territorially bounded control, as articulated in official policies advocating respect for each nation's chosen regulatory model.^[17] In terms of control mechanisms, IPv9 incorporates advanced authentication, encryption, and routing protocols tailored for domestic oversight, facilitating granular management of traffic and content without external dependencies. This aligns with broader geopolitical aims to fortify internal stability against perceived threats, including information warfare, by rendering public network data impervious to foreign monitoring or manipulation.^[28] While proponents frame these elements as defensive necessities for national resilience, they enable enhanced state surveillance and censorship capabilities inherent to China's internet governance, potentially exacerbating global fragmentation by prioritizing sovereignty over interoperability.^[13]

Impact on Global Internet Standards

China's IPv9 proposal, first hyped in 2004 as a next-generation protocol compatible with IPv4 and IPv6, received no formal recognition from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the primary body for developing internet standards.^[12][4] Reports of widespread domestic deployment were later dismissed by Chinese authorities as exaggerated, with the initiative remaining a marginal research project lacking submission to international standards processes.^[3] This absence of IETF engagement ensured IPv9 exerted no influence on the evolution of core protocols like IPv6, which continues as the global standard for address expansion.^[1] The protocol's emphasis on expansive addressing—claimed to support up to 2^128 addresses per device for applications like IoT and biometrics—highlighted China's pursuit of technological sovereignty but failed to address interoperability concerns central to global standards.^[28] International networking communities viewed it as incompatible with established routing hierarchies, prompting skepticism rather than integration efforts.^[57] No evidence exists of IPv9 influencing IETF working groups or RFC publications, contrasting with China's active but separate contributions to IPv6 enhancements.^[58] IPv9's lack of traction underscored broader challenges in global internet governance, where state-driven alternatives risk fragmentation without multilateral consensus.^[54] While it raised questions about U.S.-centric protocol dependencies, as articulated by proponents, it did not alter the IETF's consensus-based model or prompt competing standards from other nations.^[7] Instead, it exemplified how domestic initiatives, absent rigorous peer review, contribute minimally to unified protocols, preserving IPv6's dominance in international deployments as of 2025.^[4]

Legacy and Current Status

Influence on Chinese Networking

Despite initial announcements in 2004 claiming widespread adoption of IPv9 within Chinese civil and commercial networks for compatibility with IPv4 and IPv6, subsequent clarifications from Chinese authorities indicated that these reports were overstated, with the protocol remaining a marginal research project rather than a foundational element of national infrastructure.^[44][3] By mid-2000s, IPv9's proponents, including researchers from institutions like the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, emphasized its decimal addressing scheme (using 10-digit formats akin to telephone numbers) as a path to network sovereignty, but no large-scale deployments materialized, and international networking communities dismissed it due to incompatibility with global standards.^[1][2] In practice, IPv9 exerted negligible direct influence on China's core networking architecture, as evidenced by the absence of operational IPv9 traffic in major Chinese ISPs and the pivot toward IPv6 standardization.^[4] China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) prioritized IPv6 rollout, mandating dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 upgrades by 2018 and full IPv6 dominance by 2025, resulting in 834 million active IPv6 users by June 2025—comprising 75.29% of internet users—and over 70% of mobile traffic on IPv6.^[56][38] This focus aligned with global IETF protocols, sidelining IPv9's proprietary elements like its Address Data Dynamic Allocation (ADDA) system, which aimed to assign addresses to non-traditional devices but lacked interoperability testing or vendor support.^[1] Indirectly, IPv9 discourse may have heightened awareness of protocol sovereignty in Chinese policy circles, contributing to initiatives like the "Decimal Network Standard Working Group" established in 2001, but these efforts translated into rhetorical emphasis on self-reliance rather than tangible networking shifts.^[9] Peer-reviewed comparisons, such as those evaluating IPv9 against IPv6, highlight its theoretical advantages in address space (e.g., supporting cellular-level addressing) but underscore practical barriers like router dependency reduction claims that were unproven in real networks.^[7] As of October 2025, no verified IPv9 implementations exist in China's backbone networks, with telecom giants like China Mobile and China Unicom reporting IPv6-centric expansions exceeding 15% fixed broadband traffic, per MIIT targets.^[6] This trajectory underscores IPv9's role as a conceptual precursor to sovereignty-focused R&D, but not a driver of operational networking evolution.

Broader Implications for Internet Fragmentation

China's development of IPv9, which proposes a decimal-based addressing system integrated with national telephone numbering to enhance sovereignty over internet routing, represents a deliberate divergence from the binary addressing of global IPv4 and IPv6 standards managed by bodies like the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).^[2] This approach prioritizes national control mechanisms, such as linking addresses to verifiable domestic identifiers, over universal interoperability, potentially requiring specialized gateways or translations for cross-border traffic and thereby introducing friction in global connectivity.^[28] Proponents within China frame IPv9 as essential for escaping foreign dominance in core protocols, arguing it enables "autonomous and controllable" networks amid perceived vulnerabilities in existing IP stacks.^[27] Such protocol nationalism contributes to the broader trend of internet balkanization, where state-driven alternatives erode the end-to-end principle of a unified global network. By advocating IPv9 through domestic standardization efforts and limited pilots, China signals a model of "cyber sovereignty" that could encourage other nations—particularly in the Global South via initiatives like the Belt and Road—to adopt regionally tailored protocols, fostering silos incompatible with IETF norms.^[54] This risks amplifying technical barriers alongside existing soft fragmentations, such as data localization laws and firewalls, as seen in China's Great Firewall, which already segments access to foreign content.^[59] Although IPv9 has not achieved widespread deployment or international endorsement, its persistence in policy discourse underscores geopolitical incentives for protocol divergence, potentially complicating future harmonization efforts in forums like the ITU.^[4] Economically, full-scale fragmentation via IPv9 adoption would impose costs on multinational trade reliant on seamless IP routing, likely constraining its practical rollout even within China, where IPv6 deployment exceeds 50% of broadband users as of 2023.^[60] Nonetheless, the initiative exemplifies how strategic autonomy pursuits can indirectly splinter the internet ecosystem, as parallel standards demand duplicated infrastructure and reduce incentives for cross-protocol innovation, ultimately favoring state-centric models over a borderless web.^[61]

Prospects for Future Relevance

China's IPv9 initiative, proposed as a sovereign alternative to IPv6 with features like 1024-bit addressing and purported cellular-level granularity, faces substantial barriers to widespread relevance due to its absence from international standardization processes. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has long established IPv6 as the de facto successor to IPv4, addressing address exhaustion through 128-bit addresses and backward compatibility mechanisms, leaving little incentive for global adoption of non-interoperable alternatives like IPv9.^[2] Domestically, IPv9's prospects are constrained by China's accelerating IPv6 rollout, which achieved approximately 59% mobile broadband penetration by mid-2025, supported by government mandates and infrastructure investments exceeding those for experimental protocols. Claims of IPv9 deployment, such as those from 2018 announcements, have been widely regarded as unsubstantiated or promotional, with no evidence of scalable implementation amid the priority on IPv6 for commercial and civil sectors.^[38][62][2] Technical hurdles, including unproven routing efficiency for expansive address spaces and integration complexities with existing TCP/IP stacks, undermine IPv9's practicality, as independent assessments highlight its origins in political rather than empirical innovation needs. While Chinese research papers tout IPv9 for sovereignty—such as enabling "autonomous and controllable" networks—these lack peer-reviewed validation outside state-affiliated outlets, contrasting with IPv6's battle-tested ecosystem.^[4][28] In the long term, IPv9's influence may persist in specialized, isolated applications for national security or IoT experimentation, but global internet cohesion favors IPv6 evolution, rendering IPv9's broader relevance improbable without fundamental redesign and international buy-in, which remains absent as of 2025.^[2][4]