China is leading the world in hybrid cloud adoption and it is expected to rapidly extend its leadership in the coming years, according to a new report released by Nutanix Inc, a US-based cloud computing software company.

The report, dubbed The Enterprise Cloud Index, said 17 percent of surveyed Chinese enterprises had already deployed hybrid cloud, compared with 13 percent globally and 11 percent in the Asia-Pacific.

According to the report, Chinese companies plan to actively shift investment to hybrid cloud architectures during the next five years, with a projected 70 percent hybrid cloud penetration by 2024. The penetration rate is much higher than the global averages of just over 50 percent.

Over the same period, traditional datacenter penetration is estimated to dip by almost three quarters from 55 percent penetration to a mere 13 percent in China.

"China's enterprises are once again driving innovation and productivity around the world," said Lily Ma, head of Nutanix in China. "With digitalization reshaping every industry, our appetite for cloud is growing rapidly – and hybrid has become the natural choice for the country's enterprises."

"As businesses step up the value chain, and focus on efficiency, productivity and resilience, the requirement for simple, scalable infrastructure to better compete at home and abroad becomes a priority."

Nutanix said in the report that the shift will help Chinese companies get rid of their dependence on outdated technologies and simplify IT management and operations.

As many traditional companies plan to upgrade and optimize their business within the next 10 years, this will become of one the key demands of Chinese companies, the report said.

According to the report, China topped all other countries in terms of the percentage of companies that consider hybrid cloud to be the most secure IT model, with 43 percent of respondents reporting that hybrid cloud is the most secure IT operating model.