China Builds a Better Internet - IPv6 will Change the Game at the 2008 Olympics

According to Ben Worthen, Senior Writer, CIO Magazine, and author of China Builds a Better Internet, “China’s Next Generation Internet is the centerpiece of China's plan to steal leadership away from the United States in all things Internet and information technology.” In the Total Picture Radio Podcast, Peter Clayton discusses this important issue with Ben.

“Americans have been hogging Internet addresses for decades, leaving late-comers like China to divvy up the few remaining slivers. But China is fighting back by vaulting to an addressing standard that could rewrite the rules of the Internet—and business innovation—for decades to come.” - Ben Worthen,

Article Excerpt:
The strategy, outlined in China's latest five-year plan, calls for the country to transition its economy from one based almost entirely on manufacturing to one that produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs—using a new and improved version of today's dominant innovation platform, the Internet. "CNGI is the culmination of this revolutionary plan" to turn China into the world's innovation capital, says Wu Hequan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the chairman of the CNGI Expert Committee, the group overseeing the project. "We will use it as a way to break through and be competitive in the global economic market."

From Ben’s Blog entry on the article:
Longtime readers may recall that I went to China a few months ago. The fruit of that trip is now online, an article about China’s Next Generation Internet. It’s a long story that (blatant self –promotion warning) I encourage everyone to read. But the short version is that China has determined that the only way it can sustain its current economic growth rate into the future is to become a country that produces its own innovations rather than a country that simply manufactures innovations developed elsewhere. China is betting that building a next generation Internet before the rest of the world does will put it in a position to develop the killer applications for it first, which will in turn lead to an economic boom similar to the one the U.S. experienced in the 1990s. For more on the economic theory at work you can check out this write up of endogenous growth theory. For more details of the project, read the article.

About Ben Worthen
Senior Writer Ben Worthen joined CXO Media in 2000. He graduated from Vassar College with a degree in American culture and set out to disprove the family members who said with his liberal arts degree and a dollar he could get a cup of coffee (he did—coffee was a buck fifty). Ben eventually landed at Forrester Research where he learned to speak technologese as part of the software development research team.

Ben's reporting on technology and Internet policy has won several business journalism awards. His recent work has focused on the commercial, political and technical challenges facing the Internet. Ben has been a professional bluegrass musician and an Ultimate Frisbee world champion. When not writing or playing, he combats his wanderlust and watches old movies on a rehabilitated Bell & Howell projecor.