Source: Xinhua
On the busy streets of Shenzhen, traffic lights used to count down seconds regardless of traffic; now they read the flow of vehicles instead. Smart traffic solutions have switched signals from fixed timing to vehicle-sensitive release, cutting average waiting time at key intersections by 17.7%.
In the Xiong’an New Area, builders once watched the citywide weather forecast; now they receive a dedicated meteorological service. With one automatic weather station per square kilometre, precise, site-based weather data is pushed to each project manager’s phone through a smart-site weather service system, supporting construction across the new area.
China’s leadership has noted that the world is entering a period of rapid development for the digital economy, in which 5G, artificial intelligence, smart cities and other new technologies, business forms and platforms are springing up and profoundly shaping global innovation, industrial restructuring and economic and social development. The recent Central Economic Work Conference called for accelerating digital transformation and upgrading traditional industries. In the opening year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, China has been actively advancing digital industrialisation and the digitalisation of industry, and the smart economy growing out of this deep integration is injecting strong momentum into high-quality development.
Industrial internet powers transformation and activates new growth
In the workshop of China First Heavy Industries’ digitalised manufacturing plant, production data scrolls across the screen in real time and charts update dynamically. After studying the data on the large electronic display, deputy plant director Liu Zhiguo presses a button and large power-transmission equipment starts to turn. China Mobile and China First Heavy Industries used 5G, cloud computing and other new-generation information technologies to build an industrial internet platform suited to heavy-equipment manufacturing. In the digital model workshop where Liu works, 34 machine tools are now intelligently networked, collecting, aggregating, analysing and presenting production data through the platform.
With production operations digitalised, standardised and refined, frontline workers have moved away from working purely on experience, and managers can track production in real time and trace the production process. Liu notes that the industrial internet has given traditional manufacturing a smart brain: the more intelligent workshop has cut production management costs by 20%, shortened production cycles by 30% and lifted production revenue by 10%.
China now has more than 100 influential industrial internet platforms connecting over 76 million devices. By the end of August this year, the CNC rate of key processes and the penetration rate of digital R&D and design tools in key manufacturing sectors had reached 53.7% and 73.7% respectively, up 30.1 and 25.4 percentage points from 2012.
AI empowers the real economy and opens new space for development
Download the Apollo Go app, enter your details and pass the system check, and about ten minutes later a blue-and-white robotaxi pulls up. Not long ago, Guo Yu, who works at an internet company in Beijing, hailed a Baidu driverless car during a holiday trip to Shanghai. Shanghai is the fifth city where Baidu has opened its autonomous ride-hailing service; in the third quarter of this year the service completed 115,000 rides, with testing mileage exceeding 18 million kilometres.
Autonomous driving is a flagship application of AI in transport, but artificial intelligence is also integrating deeply with industry, healthcare, education, culture and tourism, urban management, finance and other fields, constantly creating new use cases. According to the head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China’s AI industry has achieved remarkable results: innovation and application of technologies such as image recognition and speech recognition rank among the world’s most advanced, the total number of AI invention patents granted ranks first globally, the scale of the core industry keeps growing, and a complete industrial chain and application ecosystem covering the base, technology and application layers has taken shape.
The Ministry of Science and Technology will strengthen scenario-driven innovation, organising a series of major AI application demonstrations in manufacturing, transport, agriculture, healthcare and urban management, and publishing key scenario lists to support more AI companies in scenario innovation and open up more room for the smart economy.
5G reaches every industry and brightens everyday life
A tennis fan working at a university in Beijing described watching the National Games this year through China Mobile Migu Video’s VR live broadcast, which delivered a full-field virtual reality effect on a phone screen without glasses. The immersive options went further: choosing a single player’s view worked like a follow camera, rotation allowed watching from any angle as if walking around the court, and great moments could be paused and replayed from all directions. Smooth multi-angle switching made it feel almost as good as being there.
Behind these smart viewing modes is the rapid rollout of 5G. With its high speed, low latency and large bandwidth, the 5G network can transmit panoramic footage captured by HD cameras to phones and other terminals almost instantly, according to a deputy general manager of Shaanxi Mobile.
5G plus healthcare, 5G plus transport, 5G plus education: smart-life applications driven by 5G keep emerging. Ministry of Industry and Information Technology data shows China has built more than 1.15 million 5G base stations, over 70% of the global total, operating the world’s largest and most technologically advanced standalone 5G network. All prefecture-level city districts, more than 97% of county seats and 40% of townships now have 5G coverage, and 5G terminal users have reached 450 million, over 80% of the global total. As 5G spreads through every industry and into millions of households, it is stimulating new demand, driving new consumption and brightening daily life.
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