R&D progress helps boost global influence

Chinese internet companies' continuous research and development improvements are driving their emergence as first-tier international players with core technologies, analysts said.

Xie Shaofeng, director of the Informatization and Software Service Division at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said domestic internet companies are making steady progress in R&D, with a string of internationally competitive players emerging in the fields of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies.

Last year, China's top 100 internet companies' combined R&D spending exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) for the first time, hitting 106 billion yuan as spending rose 41.4 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by the MIIT's information center and the Internet Society of China.