As the Internet of Things (IoT) begins to take shape, one country is starting to shape a good deal of the world's IoT. Not surprisingly, that country is China.

According to a recent GSMA report, China now accounts for over a quarter of the world's machine-to-machine (M2M) connections with more than 50 million.

The GSMA report  further claims that China's leading IoT position in the world is due in large part to the country's strong government support for the future of this category as they plan to invest more than $600 billion in IoT through the year 2020.

"China is a rapidly developing country that is investing in communications technologies that will make its cities smarter and provide a better quality of life for its citizens," explained Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. "Proactive government support has benefited China and its mobile operators, whereas in many global markets, regulatory uncertainty has held back the deployment of M2M solutions. The addressable market and the opportunity for further growth is immense, especially when one considers the sheer number of 'things' such as cars or domestic appliances that could potentially be connected by mobile."

The GSMA report also points out that Asia is currently the largest regional IoT market in the world, accounting for 40 percent of the world's 189 million M2M connections by the end of 2013. The largest percentage of that growth has occurred between 2010 and 2013 as the region added some 55 million M2M net connections and China led the way with 39 million of that total.

The rapid growth potential of the global IoT market has been a hot topic of late as several research firms are predicting at what point the market will begin to go mainstream. A recent Pew Research Center report has targeted 2025 as the year a true global IoT market will emerge.

"By 2025 there will be a global, immersive, invisible, ambient networked computing environment built through the continued proliferation of smart sensors, cameras, software, databases, and massive data centers in a world-spanning information fabric known as the Internet of Things," the Pew report states.