China to build 10 enterprise-level industrial internet platforms by 2020

China is expected to establish 10 cross-sector and cross-field industrial internet platforms which can support enterprises' digital, internet and smart production by 2020, Economic Information Daily reports.

China will accelerate the pace to establish, develop and apply "industrial internet", or integration of industry and the internet, in 2018, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.

Advanced technologies such as IPv6, NB-IoT, SDN and 5G will be applied to build a mature industrial internet application and production system starting from 2018.

The country will develop 300,000 industrial app for specific sectors and settings to encourage 300,000 enterprises to carry out businesses including research and development, design, production, operation and management on industrial internet platform by 2020.

The basic and supportive functions of industrial internet platform to reconstruct and upgrade industries will emerge and industrial internet will enter into application stage in 2020.

Industries such as automobile, aerospace, petrochemical and machinery manufacturing will start a smart manufacturing era by establishing a new smart equipment and smart production process which can connect to the internet, calculate and optimize.

Industrial internet,the foundation of all-element pan-internet connection, is the "blood circulation system" of industrial intelligence. It is also a premise and basis to precisely match global supply chain and enterprises' production system, manage the whole life cycle of a product and provide intelligent service.

The State Council, China's cabinet, unveiled a guideline for developing the "industrial internet" at the end of last year, which clearly stated that China's industrial internet infrastructure covering all regions and sectors should be complete by 2025.

China will lead the world in key sectors of the industrial internet by 2035 and be among the top countries in terms of the overall strength of its industrial internet by the middle of the century, according to the State Council guideline.

The government has inspected key enterprises such as Huawei and Tencent on industrial internet technology innovation and application in areas such as settings, data, products, algorithms and services to promote their experience to more companies.

The development of industrial internet is a must for China's manufacturing sector amid international competition, as the country's advantage in cheap labor fades.

The "Made in China 2025" strategy, equivalent to Germany's Industry 4.0, was announced in 2015 to encouraged domestic manufacturers to move up global value chain.

As the industrial internet becomes a global trend, the number of equipment connecting to industrial internet will explode to 10 billion by 2021, with 25 percent compound growth rate up from 2.6 billion in 2015, according to Yole Development, a marketing consultant company.

Industrial internet is expected to influence 46 percent or $32.3 trillion of global economy in the future, according to General Electric, who coined the term industrial internet in 2012.

China's industrial internet development is estimated to bring $3 trillion GDP growth in the next 20 years and inject overwhelming momentum for the upgrading of the manufacturing industry and sustainable economic growth, said MIIT.

By Yang Yang | chinadaily.com.cn