The Chinese government are investing in 5G, AI and data analytics to transform the Industrial Internet of Things sector, ensuring that China will dominate the global IoT market. GSMA estimates from their ‘The Industrial IoT in Greater China’ report, there will be 13.8 billion IIoT connections globally by 2025 and Greater China will account for approximately 4.1 billion of these connections or a third of the global market.

In 2015, the government announced its ‘Made in China 2025’ strategy, aiming to boost manufacturing innovation such as the IoT, smart appliances and high-end consumer electronics, to further digitally transform the Chinese economy in the next ten years. The same year, the ‘Internet Plus Action Plan’ was also introduced to integrate the Internet with traditional industries, creating a new strategy for economic growth by assimilating mobile internet, cloud computing, big data and the IoT with modern manufacturing.

China’s mobile operators will be essential in developing secure, reliable and intelligent connectivity to enterprises across the nation. GSMA’s Internet of Things Programme is working with these operators and other vendors to support and enhance the delivery of secure IoT solutions including Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks, such as LTE-M and NB-IoT, helping to incorporate innovative new services across the country.

Industrial IoT will enable factories to monitor and interpret data from the production lines in real time to anticipate faults and mitigate risk. This data will improve efficiencies, optimize productivity and minimize the costs in important economic sectors such as energy and telecoms. The country’s investments in AI and machine learning, will help factories and organizations manage complex processes and drive future innovation.