China has recently rolled out a draft of measures aimed at driving the development of the industrial internet and accelerating its integration with other industries.

A welding robot works in an aluminium form company in Yichun, Jiangxi province. (Photo/People's Daily)

The country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) released 20 measures to drive the accelerated development of the industrial internet on March 20.

Through these measures, the ministry will boost integrated innovation and application of industrial internet while expediting the construction of new infrastructure. It will also work more quickly to improve security systems, boost the drivers of innovative development, arrange industrial ecosystems, and increase policy support.

Enterprises are encouraged to use industrial internet to share information, technologies, production capacity and orders, and step up efforts to make their industrial equipment cloud-based.

The country will use 5G technology and artificial intelligence to improve the industrial internet infrastructure and speed up the construction of big data centers for its development, according to the ministry.

The construction of big data centers will boost innovative development of industrial internet and help transform the manufacturing industry, said Wang Jian, an academician at the China Academy of Engineering, who is also a chief scientist at the China Academy of Industrial Industry.

Meanwhile, governments of provincial regions, including Guangdong, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, have introduced related policies aimed at supporting the development of the industrial internet industry.

The added value of China’s industrial internet industry is expected to hit 3.1 trillion yuan in 2020, according to a recent report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

It is forecast that the sector will account for 2.9 percent of the country’s GDP, and will create more than 2.6 million new jobs this year, the report said.

Experts predicted that industrial internet will become one of the most active areas in the national economy.