Chinese proposal for an alternative Internet addressing scheme
In 2004, news reports emerged that China was developing a new "IPv9" technology to replace the existing Internet Protocol. This appears to have been a proposal to link Internet addressing with Chinese 10-digit telephone numbers.[1] The protocol was a research project of the Institute of Chemical Engineering (Shanghai), and there was little evidence that it gained any real-world adoption.[2]
A small number of papers and patents have been published which refer to IPv9 addressing.[3][4][5][6] Proponents of the scheme say that it promotes digital sovereignty,[7] and is superior to IPv6 in that it will allow every living cell to be assigned its own IPv9 address.[8]
The Chinese IPv9 proposal is distinct from RFC 1347,[9] "TCP and UDP with Bigger Addresses (TUBA)", a proposal for network address extension using CLNP which was provisionally assigned the Internet Protocol version number 9, and RFC 1606,[10] an April Fools' Day Request for Comments that describes a fictional IPv9 protocol that featured a vast addressing space and a huge number of network layers.
^CN 2591884, Pan, Xuezeng; Ping, Lingdi & Xie, Jianping, "New generation IPV9 protocol router", published 2003-12-10, assigned to University of Zhejiang, now expired.