WUHAN -?China needs more cyber security specialists, according to a national cyber security awareness event held Monday in Wuhan, capital of the central province of Hubei.

Sources with the activity, which was sponsored by the China Cyberspace Administration, said that China currently needs 700,000 cyber security specialists, which may rise to 1.4 million by 2020.

National Cyber Security Awareness Week has been held annually since 2014 to engage and educate the public and the private sectors about cyber security through various initiatives.

For the first time ever this year, 19 individuals were selected for the outstanding contributions they have made to cyber security.

Each person was awarded up to 1 million yuan (150,000 U.S. dollars).

Shen Changxiang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, received the top prize for his work on a cloud service for Windows XP users in China. He was the lead scientist on the team.

About 15,000 students majored in information security are graduated from Chinese higher learning institutes every year. The figure, however, is far from being enough to satisfy the country's growing need.

In July, the cyberspace administration, along with the ministries of education, science and technology, industry and information technology, announced that cyber security education and training would become a national strategy.

In a country of 700 million Internet users, core information and cyber security technologies must be improved to suit the new environment.