Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology not long ago showed that as of the end of February this year, the total number of 5G base stations in China reached 3.599 million, and the number of 5G mobile phone subscribers reached 851 million, of which 5G applications have been integrated into 71 major categories of the national economy. This shows that the level of China's digital empowerment of the real economy has been significantly increased, marking the obvious acceleration of the transformation of industry, especially manufacturing digital intelligence.

The essence of manufacturing digital intelligence is the deep integration of a new generation of information technology and manufacturing represented by artificial intelligence, which is a key part of the new quality of productivity. Accelerating the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing digital intelligence has become an important way to develop new quality productivity and achieve high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. This year's ‘Government Work Report’ proposes to deepen the research and development application of big data, artificial intelligence and other applications, and carry out the ‘Artificial Intelligence +’ action, in which an important content is ‘Artificial Intelligence + Manufacturing’, that is, to promote the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing digital intelligence.

Recent years, all over the world to vigorously promote the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing digital intelligence, and achieved significant results. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that in 2023, the scale of China's industrial Internet core industry reached 1.35 trillion yuan, and has been fully integrated into 49 major categories of the national economy. By the end of 2023, China had cultivated 421 national demonstration factories as well as more than 10,000 provincial digital workshops and smart factories. Smart factories and digital workshops play an obvious role in enhancing factor productivity and developing new quality productivity.

It should also be seen that there are still many problems in the development of manufacturing digital intelligence in China. For example, the underlying technology for the development of manufacturing digital intelligence needs to be broken through, and the level of digital intelligence transformation and synergy between large, medium and small enterprises needs to be urgently improved, especially the support and driving role of the leading industrial chain enterprises needs to be strengthened; there are some obstacles to the application of artificial intelligence models in the vertical industry, and the leading role of manufacturing digital intelligence standards needs to be strengthened. Next, the development of new productivity should be fostered as a leader, strengthen the system to promote, accelerate the short boards, and more efficiently promote the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry digital intelligence, to provide a strong impetus for the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry.

Drive industrial innovation with scientific and technological innovation, and strengthen the role of innovation leading support. Strengthen the basic theories, original algorithms, high-end chips, key components, high-precision sensors and other key core technology R & D research and development, accelerate the breakthroughs in key basic materials, core basic components, advanced basic process technology, accelerate the development of a number of independent intellectual property rights of the core support software, consolidate the manufacturing industry, digital intelligence technology base. Scientific and technological innovation to drive industrial innovation, to achieve the deep integration of the manufacturing industry chain and innovation chain. Integration of key enterprises, universities and institutes of innovation resources, around the manufacturing industry digital intellectual key technology and equipment, core industrial software, intelligent products and services, industrial Internet, system integration and other major needs for scientific and technological research and development and transformation of results, and to further open up from scientific and technological research and development to technological transformation, and then to the commercialisation of the application of the innovation chain, to create cross-border integration of the manufacturing industry innovation ecosystem.

Enhance the level of ‘digital transformation, network connection and intelligent reform’ of manufacturing enterprises. Accelerate the promotion and application of new sensing, advanced control and other intelligent parts, and promote the updating and iteration of intelligent equipment and software. Give full play to China's manufacturing industry's advantage of rich digital intelligence scenes, and promote the construction of digital workshops, smart factories and smart production lines in a scenario-based manner. Vigorously develop new modes of intelligent design, production, management and other intelligent services. Strengthen the demonstration, leading and driving role of chain master enterprises and eco-dominant enterprises in digital and intellectual transformation, and effectively drive the upstream and downstream enterprises of the industrial chain to carry out digital and intellectual collaboration and accurate docking to achieve digital and intellectual transformation. Promote the classification and implementation of ‘digital transformation’ for small and medium-sized enterprises, encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out scenario-specific industrial Internet applications, and advocate small and medium-sized enterprises to use mature cloud storage, cloud desktop, cloud security and other application services, so as to rapidly improve the level of digital and intellectual transformation of enterprises. We will strengthen the implementation of standards for the dual-integration management system, and encourage and support small and medium-sized enterprises with good fundamentals and strong growth, especially ‘speciality and new’ enterprises, to take the lead in promoting the ‘digital-to-network-intelligence reform’.

The development of 5G, industrialised networking and other digital intelligence infrastructure will be appropriately advanced. Create more multi-scene integration, multi-system integration, multi-device co-operation scene application projects. Accelerate the construction and promotion of industrial Internet marking resolution system, explore marking resolution application service mode, and create more typical application scenes. Accelerate the scale application of industrial Internet, effectively release the value of data, and provide strong support for the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing industry.

Strengthen the standard leadership of manufacturing digital intelligence transformation and upgrading. Encourage enterprises to participate in the formulation and revision of relevant national or industrial standards, organise the formulation of group standards to meet the needs of the market and innovation, carry out research on basic commonality, key technologies, key industry standards and specifications, build a manufacturing digital intelligence standard test and verification platform, and establish a manufacturing digital intelligence standard system.

Source: Economic Daily