"In recent years, the new round of information revolution has brought about revolutionary changes in industrial technology routes and breakthrough innovations in business models, and the digital economy has been able to develop at a rapid pace. The new generation of information technology represented by 5G and the industrial Internet has continuously driven the transformation of the real economy in the direction of digitization, networking and intelligence."
In this process, the complementary effects of 5G and the industrial Internet have brought "intellectual change" to various industries, and gradually formed a new infrastructure, application model and industrial ecology for deep integration with the industrial economy. The full integration of 5G and industrial Internet will accelerate the digitalization and intellectualization of China's real economy, promote the construction of a new type of industrialization in China, and inject new momentum into the high-quality development of the social economy.
In recent years, "5G+industrial Internet" has been developing rapidly in terms of top-level planning and design, infrastructure construction, industry application and industrial ecology, and has made milestone achievements. On the whole, policies from the central government to the local government have been issued frequently to support the integration and development of 5G and industrial Internet. 5G private networks, industrial data centers, edge computing nodes, industrial Internet platforms and other infrastructures have been gradually built, enabling the initial formation of the base of the digital economy. Typical scenarios and industry applications have been enriched, and application areas have been deepened, gradually penetrating from the peripheral auxiliary links of production to the core links of R&D and design, production and manufacturing. Industrial enterprises, information and communication enterprises, Internet companies and other types of industrial entities continue to strengthen cooperation, the formation of innovation and development alliances, aggregation of ecology, and efforts to play a good "team game" to promote the process.
However, at the same time of development, there are also differences between supply-side capabilities and demand-side requirements, insufficient replicability of scenarios, difficulty in large-scale construction, unclear business models and other issues, and it is still necessary to promote the orderly development of the "5G + industrial Internet" industry through a variety of means, such as policy, technological innovation, capital, etc., and the scale of application Replication. Therefore, it is especially important to clarify the policy drivers, realistic problems and possible breakthroughs in the development of "5G+Industrial Internet" to promote its development in the future.
"5G+Industrial Internet" policies are frequently introduced
The Chinese government attaches great importance to the development of the integration application of "5G+industrial Internet". Since 2015, the central and local governments have introduced a series of policies according to the situation to create a good policy environment for the development of "5G+Industrial Internet". National policies mainly play a guiding role in top-level design, industrial planning and layout, financial support, application promotion and other aspects to ensure, but also in the platform construction, technology and talent cultivation to support the "5G + industrial Internet" from the concept stage to the application of the practical stage of development. Local governments will improve supporting policies, development goals and specific implementation plans according to local industrial characteristics. With the strong support from the central and local governments at all levels, and the comprehensive role of "government, industry, academia, research and capital", the industry is enthusiastic and continues to explore the use of "5G+Industrial Internet" technology to promote industrial development, and continues to carry out relevant pilot Demonstration construction.
According to incomplete statistics, from 2020 to 2021, the central government and various provincial and municipal governments have issued more than 600 policies related to 5G and industrial Internet, and the policy system is becoming more and more perfect, basically covering industrial planning and layout, infrastructure planning and construction, financial support, industry integration and application promotion, technical standard research, security enhancement, and fostering of pioneering areas for integration and application. Aspects.
The industrial policies issued at the national level focus on top-level design and serve as guiding documents for the technical development and application innovation of "5G+industrial Internet", providing direction and policy guarantee for the formation of "5G+industrial Internet" standards, technology iteration, financial support, and application implementation. It also provides the direction and policy guarantee. In November 2017, the State Council issued the "Guidance on Deepening the "Internet + Advanced Manufacturing" Development of Industrial Internet", which has become a programmatic document to guide the high-quality development of domestic industrial Internet. In November 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "5G+Industrial Internet 512 Project Promotion Plan", which clearly puts forward the construction tasks and goals, namely, to build five industrial public service platforms, accelerate the pioneering application of "5G+Industrial Internet" in vertical fields, build and transform intranets for 10 key industries, and create at least 20 typical landing application scenarios. In December 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Industrial Internet Innovation and Development Action Plan (2021-2023)", which requires the completion of eight public service platforms, exploration of 5G private network construction and operation modes, support for capable enterprises to carry out 5G fully connected factory construction, and promotion of 5G technology from auxiliary production scenarios to core production scenarios on top of the achievements of the first three years of the start-up period. In May 2021 and April 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Industrial Internet Task Force Work Plan for 2021" and "Industrial Internet Task Force Work Plan for 2022" respectively. In May and April 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Industrial Internet Task Force Work Plan for 2021 and the Industrial Internet Task Force Work Plan for 2022, which clearly define the key tasks, target outcomes, completion time and responsible departments.
At the local level, local governments, under the guidance of national policies and with the characteristics of regional industries, have issued targeted local industrial policies. For example, in recent years, the Shandong Provincial Government, the Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Department of Emergency Response and other departments have issued documents such as "Notice on Several Measures to Accelerate the Development of Industrial Internet" and "Shandong Communication Industry 2021 "5G + Industrial Internet" Special Action", which require continuous acceleration of 5G and industrial Internet infrastructure construction, deepening of industry-enabled services, and improvement of Marking system and security system; at the same time, the introduction of policies and funds to support the plan, through financial funds to guide the development of industrial Internet innovation in Shandong Province; as a major chemical province, Shandong Province around the safe production, green low-carbon, smart parks and other applications, the simultaneous introduction of the application scene construction and provincial promotion plan, emphasizing the landability and availability of technology. Chongqing Municipal Government, the Economic and Information Commission and other departments have released the "Chongqing 5G application "sail" action plan (2021-2023), "Chongqing Industrial Internet Innovation Development Action Plan (2021-2023)" and other documents. Support industrial Internet, smart manufacturing and other solution providers to use 5G technology to create typical application scenarios for enterprises such as remote equipment control, equipment collaboration, flexible manufacturing, on-site auxiliary assembly, etc. to form a demonstration and leading effect. Encourage large and medium-sized enterprises, universities and scientific research institutions, industrial alliances to jointly build "5G + industrial Internet" technology test bed, to carry out the integration of technology, standards, equipment, solutions, research and development, testing, evaluation and assessment, etc., to create "5G + industrial Internet "pioneer demonstration area. In addition, the Yangtze River Delta region, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region have all strengthened their policy support in 5G, industrial Internet, and smart manufacturing to empower industrial development.
Overall, with the continuous upgrading and development of the industry, the policy system of "5G+Industrial Internet" is being gradually improved, and the overall framework policy is basically introduced and is being extended to vertical industries and key areas. On the basis of national policies, local governments have introduced supporting policies, set up special projects and established special teams to promote the deep integration of "5G+industrial Internet" in key industries and key fields.
Typical application scenarios
The "5G+Industrial Internet" is accelerating the empowerment of thousands of industries, covering 41 national economic categories and involving six major application modes: digital R&D, intelligent manufacturing, networked collaboration, personalized customization, service extension and lean management. As of August 2022, a total of more than 3,100 projects have been landed nationwide, covering more than 20 key industries such as steel, electric power, mining, petrochemical, textile, etc. The "5G+Industrial Internet" into industrial bases, industrial parks and enterprises in key industries continues to accelerate, and the scale of the industry has surpassed the trillion yuan mark. In order to promote the innovative application of "5G+Industrial Internet" to more industries and enterprises, this paper composes 10 industry application practices and 20 typical application scenarios released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as shown in Figure 1.
As the carrier of data communication, 5G network supports the construction of industry application scenarios with its large bandwidth, low latency and wide connectivity. For example, in the remote control scenario of overhead crane equipment in steel enterprises, it is necessary to restore the live view of the operation site at the remote end, which requires real-time synchronization of audio and video and other data in addition to the status data and control data of the equipment, thus requiring high timeliness of transmission, real-time perception, and reliability of operation. The 5G network is continuously optimized to guarantee large bandwidth, low latency and high reliability for data uplink, as well as low latency and safe and high reliability for data downlink control signaling.
The industrial Internet platform connects data collection, storage, calculation, analysis, and application, so it can realize application innovation through the industrial mechanism model and data model accumulated by the platform. For example, in the chemical rotating equipment fault diagnosis scenario, the plant can use the industrial Internet platform to collect information on temperature, pressure and vibration of the equipment and analyze the peak, spectrum and trend; it can also diagnose and analyze the rotor misalignment, rotor wear and fracture, seal failure, etc. through the trained fault classification model, and combine with the knowledge mapping or expert system to recommend relevant inspection and repair solutions, spare parts information.
"5G+Industrial Internet" faces three major challenges
Under the promotion of policies, China's "5G+Industrial Internet" has gained good momentum and achieved remarkable results in the development of standards, technology research and development, and industry integration applications, but there are still certain problems and challenges, mainly summarized in the following three points.
First, the enterprise endogenous demand is insufficient, "5G + industrial Internet" large-scale application of landing resistance. Although China's "5G + industrial Internet" application landing cases are gradually increasing, but mostly for the industry benchmark projects to build. Driven by high subsidies policy, some enterprises will even traditional information technology projects, automation projects for packaging, and this is not really from the enterprise internal needs of the "5G + industrial Internet" project. Therefore, the development of "5G+Industrial Internet" may soon enter the platform period, which needs to be broken through.
Secondly, multiple factors such as technical reliability and security make it difficult to integrate 5G with some industrial applications in depth. From the above-mentioned typical application scenarios, "5G + industrial Internet" has involved a number of links from research and development design, production control to operation and maintenance, and also gradually cut from the peripheral auxiliary production link to the core production link. However, chemical and electric power industries require extremely high security and stability of the production process, and the consequences are unimaginable once problems occur; while the stability and reliability of 5G network, as well as the accuracy and security of the model precipitated by the industrial Internet platform, have not yet been verified by large-scale commercial implementation, so enterprises dare not easily replace the existing network and industrial Internet with "5G+industrial Internet" technology. "technology to replace the existing network, industrial mechanism, etc.
Third, small and medium-sized enterprises still have concerns about the application of new technologies, making it difficult to fully promote the application. At present, the industry's leading enterprises actively embrace the "5G + industrial Internet", through the platform, gathering data, build applications, expand the ecology of digital transformation. However, the acceptance of new technology applications by small and medium-sized enterprises is limited, mainly because of the high construction costs and the inability to obtain better economic benefits in a short period of time. Therefore, only a small number of enterprises have carried out intelligent transformation at a single point or partially, and relatively few enterprises have carried out large-scale infrastructure construction such as 5G network and industrial Internet platform.
Analysis of Development Trends
The development of "5G+industrial Internet" has entered a mature period. According to the analysis of the policies issued by the central and local governments, I believe that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, "5G+industrial Internet" will Focus on the development of the following three directions.
1. Industrial Internet-enabled park development
As an important carrier of regional economic development, industrial parks have the outstanding characteristics of high industrial concentration, strong enterprise relevance and urgent demand for digital transformation, and are the key industrial direction to play the role of industrial Internet platform infrastructure empowerment and realize the platform application landing. The "Industrial Internet Task Force 2022 Work Plan" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposes to promote the use of industrial Internet by provinces and municipalities to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of parks, and carry out "100 cities and 1,000 parks" activities of industrial Internet in parks. Local governments also attach great importance to the construction of industrial Internet parks, and 22 provinces and cities have issued relevant support policies to help industrial Internet parks take root.
There are many industrial parks in China, taking chemical parks as an example, as of June 2022, the number of chemical parks identified nationwide reached 616, of which Shandong (85), Zhejiang (52), Hubei (51), Henan (47) and Shanxi (41) ranked among the top five in the country, and the number of chemical parks with an output value of more than 10 billion yuan was as high as 271. By subdividing industries, they include petrochemical, fine chemical, coal chemical, salt chemical, pharmaceutical chemical, etc. The development of chemical parks faces problems such as high safety risk, high energy consumption and carbon emission, and backward management means, while industrial Internet technology will become an important means to ensure safe production, green and low-carbon, and intelligent operation of chemical parks.
2. Industrial Internet enables the digital transformation of SMEs
As the main body of the national economy, small and medium-sized enterprises account for more than 90% of the total number of enterprises. At present, the digital transformation practice of small and medium-sized enterprises is still at the stage of continuous exploration, and the digital level of enterprises is generally low, mainly facing the problems of insufficient basic capacity, high transformation cost, security concerns and insufficient service supply, but also has a large room for improvement.
With the continuous release of demand for digital transformation of SMEs and the intensive release of favorable policies, the scope of industrial Internet platform empowerment has been extended to SMEs. Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places have released a number of programs and initiatives, from diagnostic services, financial support, enterprises on the cloud and other aspects of increased support to solve the problem of small and medium-sized enterprises "do not want to turn, will not turn, do not dare to turn". The author believes that, under the premise of ensuring network security, providing cost-effective SaaS applications for small and medium-sized enterprises in R&D and design, production testing, intelligent marketing and after-sales services through the industrial Internet platform is an effective means to assist small and medium-sized enterprises in digital transformation.
3.5G fully connected factory construction and promotion
5G fully connected factory refers to the use of 5G, TSN, LAN and other information and communication technologies, the integration of industrial big data, logo resolution, artificial intelligence and other technologies, new or renovated production line level, workshop level, factory level and other production sites, the formation of production units widely connected, IT and OT deep integration, data elements to make full use of, innovative applications efficient empowerment of advanced factories.
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, we plan to achieve the goal of "100 million" pyramidal construction of fully connected factories through the collaborative promotion of the central and local governments. In other words, 10,000 enterprises will be selected nationwide to build 5G fully-connected factories at different levels; 1,000 distinctive 5G fully-connected factories will be built in 10 key industries such as petrochemical, equipment manufacturing and electric power; 100 factory benchmarks will be selected to form a construction plan with leading demonstration capability. In the enterprise side, the two dimensions of "horizontal classification and vertical grading" will be enhanced.
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