Industrial internet to be backbone of region's intelligent manufacturing

The Wuxi government is backing the development of industrial internet in the city in order to bolster its intelligent manufacturing industry.

According to a policy released in April, current rules pertaining to the development of the industrial internet will be integrated with new ones as well as related rules and guidance to provide maximum support.

The new policy covers five categories－developing the industrial internet, guiding enterprises to improve their intelligent development, speeding up innovation in intelligent manufacturing, strengthening support for intelligent manufacturing and creating a good development environment.

The industrial internet incorporates ideas of intelligent machines with embedded technology and the internet of things that allow manufacturing equipment or other types of equipment to send data back and forth.

"The new policy highlights the role of industrial internet in the development of intelligent manufacturing," said Chen Wenbin, director of the Wuxi bureau of industry and information technology.

According to the policy, industrial internet platforms listed into pilot or demonstration projects at the provincial level or above can receive a maximum of 3 million yuan ($422,800) subsidy. Benchmark enterprises for industrial internet at the provincial level or above are eligible for up to 1 million yuan.

The government will also provide subsidies in other fields, such as cloud computing, industrial big data, network and security construction, with subsidies up to 5 million yuan.

The policy has been welcomed by local enterprises. A staff member at Wuxi-based HanClouds Technology said, "They (the subsidies) are a driving force for the development of new platforms."

The company recently started building an intelligent agriculture cloud platform with Russia New Century Agriculture Technology. Based on HanClouds Technology's industrial internet, the platform can carry out big data analysis on agricultural equipment, aiming to apply intelligent management.

Liu Yu, senior director of operations at HanClouds Technology, said the project can help domestic products enter the international market and promote the competitiveness of China's intelligent agricultural products.

In addition to focusing on key enterprises, the policy also aims to help small businesses and startups grow.

For technological transformation support projects, the investment threshold has been reduced from 30 million yuan to 10 million yuan, which enables a number of projects with investment between 10-30 million yuan to be included in the policy support.

With a solid industrial foundation, a superior policy environment and abundant talent resources, Wuxi has been actively boosting the industrial internet and intelligent manufacturing industry, officials said.