Academician Wu Hequan: New giants can grow from a single technology of the Industrial Internet

This year, "new infrastructure" has become a hot word. How can enterprises seize innovation opportunities, and how can new infrastructure enable enterprises' digital transformation?

On June 20, at the 2020 China Enterprise Future Star Annual Meeting and China Entrepreneur Ecosystem Online Meeting, Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, mentioned in his speech that the National Development and Reform Commission has clarified the scope of new infrastructure, which can be divided into three categories: information infrastructure, integrated infrastructure, and innovative infrastructure. Among these three categories, information network is the foundation of the foundation of new infrastructure, and the new generation of information infrastructure leads the new infrastructure.

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Wu Hequan said that the new generation of information infrastructure can be divided into three aspects. Communication network infrastructure includes 5G, Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, and Satellite Internet. New technology infrastructure includes artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and blockchain. There is also computing power infrastructure, including data centers and intelligent computing centers.

Wu Hequan believes that the Industrial Internet is the path that enterprises must take for development, and the digital transformation of enterprises in the new era requires the development of the Industrial Internet. The reason why the Industrial Internet is proposed now is that the emergence of 5G has provided a good means of support for the Industrial Internet, and the other reason is the development of edge technology.

Wu Hequan further explained: "An important feature of 5G combined with the industrial Internet is edge computing. We have said before that cloud computing is an intensive concept that can greatly improve the efficiency of informatization. If the virtual reality, augmented reality, telemedicine, and industrial Internet production line robots in our company have to send their data to the central cloud, the distance is too long and the transmission time is too long. Therefore, it is impossible for the central cloud to make decisions in real time. We need to split part of the cloud's capabilities and sink them close to the source of data generation. This is called edge computing or edge cloud."

Wu Hequan said that in the field of industrial Internet, in addition to edge computing, it is also necessary to pay attention to the Internet of Things. With the support of 5G, the combination of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things has developed into the intelligent Internet of Things, which has greatly improved the efficiency of the Internet of Things. With these technologies, many current applications can be put on the cloud and obtain a lot of processing power.

Wu Hequan further stated that the epidemic has promoted the development of cloud economy such as cloud office, cloud classroom, cloud commerce, cloud recruitment, and cloud contracting. Even after the epidemic, when there is no quarantine requirement, cloud computing will still be popular because it can reduce travel and save time. "Cloud computing itself is also an industry. Some consulting companies predict that the national scale of the cloud gaming market will exceed 100 billion by 2023, and the cloud education market will exceed 300 billion by 2022. Of course, there is more room for industrial application," said Wu Hequan.

In terms of the development of the industrial Internet, Wu Hequan said in response to a question from netizens: "China has a window period for the development of the industrial Internet. For example, Germany, which has good industrial development, is expected to take 10 years to go from Industry 3.0 to 4.0. The entire industrial Internet process is estimated to take that long in China. In addition, the industrial Internet is different from the consumer Internet. The consumer Internet is globally connected, and only a small part of the industrial Internet may need to be connected to the global network. The vast majority of industrial enterprises do not want to be connected to the Internet, and they are all internal. Therefore, it is naturally a 'pond', and it must not be connected to the 'sea'. Connecting to the 'sea' also increases insecurity."

Wu Hequan further judged that it is difficult for new giants to become core platforms of the Industrial Internet, because it requires enterprises from the bottom to the top to have a full understanding of the original industrial and technical foundations, but new giants can emerge in the Industrial Internet. "This is not contradictory. New giants can emerge from a single technology, such as the operating system of the Industrial Internet, the chip of the Industrial Internet artificial intelligence, some special software for the Industrial Internet big data mining, and some special industrial control software. These can all grow new giants." Wu Hequan said.

Will the combination of 5G and the industrial Internet bring more applications? In Wu Hequan's view, the answer is yes. The emergence of 5G is a fusion of information technology and industrial technology. The combination of the two has brought some application examples, but these applications do not represent all.

"Looking back at the development of mobile communications, we can find that many mobile communications industries were born after the network capabilities were available. For example, 2G started worldwide in 1991, and China issued licenses in 1994. After the emergence of 2G, we had text messages, QQ, and Alipay; 3G started worldwide in 2001 and China in 2007. After the emergence of 3G, we had smartphones, mobile e-commerce, Weibo, O2O, and WeChat; 4G started worldwide in 2010 and China in 2013. After the emergence of 4G, we had QR code payment, sharing economy, social e-commerce, smart search, Kuaishou, Douyin and other short videos. These applications were not even anticipated when the 4G licenses were first issued." Wu Hequan said.