Chinese authorities plan to launch a special operation to increase IPv6 traffic in major cities, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said on Wednesday.

The operation will be launched in eight major cities -- Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Hefei, Wuxi and Yantai -- by the CAC and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the CAC said in a press release.

The yearlong operation is aimed at expanding the deployment of IPv6, which stands for Internet Protocol version 6.

IPv6 is the next-generation Internet Protocol standard. It will provide a vast quantity of address resources and serve as a fundamental support for the enhancement of network capabilities, technological innovation and industrial upgrading.

Measures will be taken to significantly increase IPv6 activation on home routers, and to visibly improve the actual adoption of IPv6 among the dedicated internet access services of key government departments and enterprises, the statement said.

Data centers will undertake technological upgrading and transformation to provide IPv6 services, and more cloud services products will support IPv6, it noted.