How DNS and IPv6 Innovations Are Shaping the Resilient Internet – Insights from the 2025 Cloud Expo

Academician Wu Hequan’s Report: New Developments in DNS

In a video presentation titled “DNS New Developments,” Academician Wu Hequan highlighted that accelerated broadband, intelligence, and digital transformation raise the demand for higher query volume, processing efficiency, and security in DNS, driving rapid growth of Alibaba Cloud’s DNS services.

He emphasized that digital infrastructure is evolving into data infrastructure, extending network resources from the physical to the logical layer, and that semantic addressing and application‑layer evolution are needed to meet AI‑driven demands. DNS security is tightly linked to overall internet resilience, requiring coordinated construction across address, identity, compute, data, routing, transport, and physical facilities.

Zhejiang Province IPv6 and Next‑Generation Internet Innovation Lab Releases

Guided by the Zhejiang Provincial Internet Information Office and expert committees, Alibaba Cloud co‑founded the “Zhejiang Province IPv6 Scale Deployment and Next‑Generation Internet Innovation Lab” in 2022, focusing on IPv6, DNS, and domain‑name security, and building a regional think‑tank and demonstration hub.

The lab’s executive deputy director, Liang Zhuo, reviewed Alibaba Cloud’s IPv6 progress since 2018, noting significant growth in outbound IPv6 traffic, deeper IPv6 adoption by leading enterprises, and full IPv6 support across major cloud products.

Collaborating with Tsinghua University, China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, H3C, and others, the lab published three whitepapers—“DNS+ Development,” “Enterprise Cloud IPv6 Solutions and Applications,” and “Data Center and Application System IPv6 Transformation Guide”—to lower deployment barriers and accelerate IT infrastructure transformation.

Key Technical Innovations

Over three years, the lab launched six innovation projects in IPv6 and next‑generation internet technologies, including ultra‑large‑scale SRv6 DCI wide‑area networks, IPv6‑only container networking, and DNS security research on the cloud platform, focusing on AI‑era compute‑cluster IPv6 network applications and infrastructure security.

Liang concluded that the 2025 Cloud Expo theme “Cloud‑Intelligence Integration, Carbon‑Silicon Co‑existence” signals a new wave of innovation driven by AI, requiring multi‑party collaboration to overcome technical bottlenecks and strengthen DNS, IPv6, and other foundational resources for the digital foundation.

Alibaba Cloud expressed its willingness to partner with industry stakeholders to co‑build high‑quality next‑generation internet infrastructure.