China generative AI users exceed 700M, penetration over 50%, smart compute up 177% YoY
CNNIC's September 29 report on generative AI applications disclosed that China's generative AI users exceeded 700M in H1 2026, with penetration over 50%, smart compute at 2185 EFLOPS (up 177% YoY), and 1,255 AI investments totaling 250.14 billion RMB.
CNNIC released its "Generative AI Application Development Report (2026)" at the 7th China Internet Infrastructure Conference on September 29, disclosing that as of H1 2026, China's generative AI users exceeded 700 million with penetration over 50%, smart compute scale at 2185 EFLOPS up 177% year-over-year.
The report's data shows 1,255 AI investment and financing deals in H1 2026 in China with disclosed amounts totaling approximately 250.14 billion RMB (about $35 billion), with an average deal size of about 200 million RMB. The report considers China's generative AI user adoption to be significantly faster than the same period of mobile internet adoption, driven primarily by major price cuts on top large models (DeepSeek, Qwen, and GLM flagship models saw 60-80% price reductions in 2025-2026), falling hardware costs (on-device large model inference chips became common in mid-range smartphones), and the expansion of application scenarios from conversational tools to productivity tools (coding, office, education, healthcare).
The report also noted that after penetration exceeds 50%, China's generative AI user growth will enter a second phase. Incremental growth will mainly come from users over 50, lower-tier city users, and SME B-end applications, with demand focus shifting from "general conversation" to "workflow embedding" and "industry know-how."