China has more than 600 million registered users for generative artificial intelligence (AI) services, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on Saturday.

Zhao Zhiguo, chief engineer at the MIIT, highlighted the continuous expansion of the country's core AI industry, with over 4,500 companies now operating in the sector.

Currently, nearly 200 generative AI service models are registered and available to the public, said Zhao.

He noted that it is essential to enhance the capacity of AI infrastructure for public services and establish accessible, adaptable and highly available AI development platforms to accelerate the training, optimization and large-scale application of AI models.

Efforts are also needed to enhance the supply capability of computing power facilities and build a unified national computing system, thereby increasing the share of intelligent computing resources, said Zhao.

The country's telecommunications operator, China Mobile, launched an evaluation standard on general AI large models on the same day together with China Electronics Standardization Institute and 16 key enterprises, providing a reference for companies to select high-quality AI models.

The standard, driven by actual demand from key industries, focuses on six dimensions, namely functionality, accuracy, reliability, safety, interactivity and applicability, to comprehensively assess the core competence in the application of large models.

It covers a wide range of industry scenarios, including telecommunications, transportation, energy and manufacturing.