The growth rate was 4 percentage points higher than the rate of overall industrial expansion last year, according to Zhou Zixue, deputy head of China Information Technology Industry Federation.

China's industrial output expanded 6 percent year on year in 2016, the National Bureau of Statistics data showed.

Industrial output, officially called industrial value added, is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises with annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about $2.9 million).

Gross profit of the information technology industry surged 16.1 percent year on year in 2016, Zhou said at a meeting, without providing further details.

But Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Chen Zhaoxiong said China will put more strength behind artificial intelligence, Internet of vehicles quantum computing.