CENI (China Environment for Network Innovation)

History

2026: Network Launch

On December 18, 2025, the CENI National Research Network was launched in China to work with big data. In testing, CENI transmitted 72 TB of data over a distance of 1000 km in 1.6 hours at a speed of 100 Gbps. Transferring a similar volume via the public Internet would take 699 days.

According to China Daily, CENI (China Environment for Network Innovation) is a large-scale open platform for testing the architectures of networks of the future. Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Liu Yunjie said that the launch of the platform brings China among the world leaders in the field of network innovation and creates the basis for the qualitative introduction of artificial intelligence in various industries.

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Фото: China Daily

According to Liu Yunjie, the project for the first time in the world has created a network architecture that is customizable for specific services, developed a distributed OS for large networks and created a global deterministic network that guarantees strict packet delivery time. These developments support the national strategy "Data in the East, Computing in the West."

CENI infrastructure unites 40 cities in China with over 55 thousand km of fiber optic lines. The platform can simultaneously support 128 different networks and conduct up to 4096 parallel tests, providing high-speed and reliable data transmission.

Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Wu Hequan said that CENI will become a testing ground for new technologies, including 5G-Advanced and 6G. Liu Yunjie cited an example of training a large AI model: a process that requires 500 thousand computational cycles using CENI can be performed at a speed of about 16 seconds per cycle, which significantly saves time and resources.

In the future, CENI will provide its facilities for testing technologies in industry, power, education, healthcare and low-altitude aviation, contributing to the Digital China initiative^[1]

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