China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are all dedicating time and effort to the research and development of Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) technology, according to the Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK), a division of Taiwan"s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI). IPv6 is the replacement for the more than 20-year-old IPv4 protocol, which is quickly running out of available addresses.
With support from the Chinese government, major carriers in China have started building multiple high-level networking platforms connected by IPv6, known as the China Next Generation Internet (CNGI), with completion scheduled for 2005. China is investing 1.4 billion yuan (around US$169 million) to implement one of the world"s largest IPv6 networks by 2010. The Japanese government adopted its e-Japan policy last year and has allocated a research and development budget of two billion yen (around US$18 million) for IPv6. They anticipate initial IPv6 network rollouts in Japan to begin by 2005.
In Taiwan, the government will invest NT$26 billion (around US$78 million) into the development and testing of IPv6. Sources involved with the local IPv6 research and development project state that the rollout is slated for 2007.