BEIJING -- The number of enterprises with business related to artificial intelligence (AI) went up in the first half of the year, data up to Thursday shows.

From January to June, the country saw more than 140,000 newly registered AI enterprises, surging 31.35 percent year-on-year, data from database query platform Tianyancha.com shows.

More than 880,000 companies in China have businesses in the areas of artificial intelligence, robots, data processing, cloud computing, voice and image recognition and natural language processing, the data shows.

The size of China's AI software and application market is expected to reach $12.75 billion by 2024, according to global market intelligence firm International Data Corporation.