Beijing Plans Fund to Support Development of China’s Industrial Internet

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The Chinese central government is planning to launch a raft of new policies to support the development of the country’s “industrial internet” and greater use of cloud computing by domestic enterprise.

“This year we will work with the Ministry of Finance on the establishment of a specialist fund to support the development of the industrial internet,” said Xie Shaofeng (谢少锋), head of the Information and Software Services Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)

“[We] are also currently in the process of working with the China Securities Regulatory Commission to  research policies to support the development of the industrial internet enterprise financing system.”

Xie made the remarks at an event held by the Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing Technology and Innovation Application Industry League (人工智能制造业技术与创新应用产业联盟) held on 24 June.

According to Xie MIIT will focus on supporting the development of a set of testing and certification environments for industrial internet platforms, as well as develop a range of industrial internet platforms that are cross-industry and cross-sector, as well as cater to specific industries and sectors.

An initial list of five cross-sector platforms will be publicly unveiled prior to October 2018.

A report from CITIC Securities forecasts that Beijing’s industrial internet policies will drive at least 300,000 companies in China to make greater use of cloud computing, creating market value of up to 3 billion yuan.

“Looking at development trends, the industrial internet is becoming a new arena of competition for leading enterprises,” said Xiao.

“Renowned companies both within China and abroad are advancing the development of their own industrial internet platforms, while software enterprises are also accelerating their industrial internet arrangements in order to seize opportunities.”