China had set up a total of nearly 1.43 million 5G base stations as of the end of 2021, accounting for over 60 percent of the global total, with 10.1 5G base stations serving every 10,000 people in China, nearly double the number at the end of 2020, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Amid the country's efforts to boost information and communication technologies, in 2021, China's investment in 5G reached 184.9 billion yuan (about $29 billion), a share of 45.6 percent in fixed-asset investment of the telecommunication industry, up 8.9 percentage points from that of 2020.

The ministry added China would make steady and orderly progress toward the establishment of 5G services and gigabit fiber-optic networks in 2022 with its 5G users expected to exceed 560 million by 2023, and every 10,000 people in the country would then be served by more than 18 5G base stations.