Jiangsu, Zhejiang take lead in China's digital economy

Jiangsu province, a center of China's rising Internet of Things (IoT) industry, and Zhejiang, China's leading Internet hub, are considered two major forces for the development of the country's digital economy. Reporters recently visited the two provinces to explore the efforts they made to achieve such a leading role in the Internet industry.

Jiangsu turned to IOT technology to revitalize its manufacturing industry.

Jiangsu GMKW Technology Co recently developed the NDCode, an invisible identification code based on nanotechnology and optical theory useable for all kinds of metal parts. By scanning the code, the origins of the metal parts are traceable no matter what kinds of products they are eventually assembled into -- vehicles, household appliances or robots -- according to Liu Hua, president of the company.

A wind power equipment manufacturer in Wuxi first applied this new technology in the draught fans it produces, gaining real-time monitoring of product operation and quality. The code can endure temperatures up to 1,000 degrees Celsius, as well as repetitive washing and brushing.

To promote the growth of Jiangsu's auto manufacturing sector, Wuxi Zhonghui Auto Electronic Technology Co joined hands with Japan's SEMITEC Corp to build the most advanced temperature sensor lab in China last year and developed a tiny sensor used for the Internet of Vehicles that can sense weak and complex signals such as light, electricity, temperature, pressure and time, and quickly give feedback to vehicles to let them execute commands correctly. Now, more than 30 percent of vehicle sensors in China are developed by the lab.

Additionally, many other world-class Internet of Vehicles technologies have been developed and applied in Jiangsu, which has emerged as a national and even global intelligent manufacturing center for smart vehicles.

Also, in the ship manufacturing sector, Jiangsu New Yangzi Shipbuilding Co is digitalizing its nearly 100 ship-making procedures. At Zhenjiang New Energy Co, 13 machine tools that cost tens of millions of yuan are doing refined data analysis. At Jiangsu Sunshine Group, a traditional textile enterprise in Wuxi, inventories have been reduced thanks to digital technology.

Zhejiang takes advantage of its active markets, and innovates business models to develop an IoT economy.

"Lierda will dominate the IoT industry if we follow the market," said company founder Chen Xianxing ambitiously in 2010 when the concept of IoT was still unclear. In 2014, Lierda brought in senior professionals from the United States to build an IoT software system department and succeeded in integrating meter reading, building, smart homes, and parking into one system within a year.

Later, Lierda focused on developing quick charge technology to cover the heavy power-consumption of smart phones, allowing users to have a two-hour phone call with a five-minute charge. In response to the country's call for energy conservation and emission reduction, the company developed an IoT-based parking lot, where the lights are on when people are on site and go off immediately after the vehicles leave, which helps save 300,000 kilowatts of power per 50,000 square meters. Currently, Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang, has built more than 10 such parking lots.

Hangzhou New H3C Group cooperated with the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences last year to build smart education industry for the Beijing Dongcheng District Education Commission. According to Liu Chen, director of the wireless products department at New H3C Group, the company has an R&D team of 6,000 members, accounting for half of its entire work force. Its research fields include cloud computing, big data, and big Internet. Last year, the group applied for 1,069 patents.

Cooperation between Zhejiang and Jiangsu is considered significant to the development of the new generation digital economy.

The Hangzhou New H3C Group worked with the Suzhou municipal government on a key industrial internet project. The data of all Suzhou's manufacturing enterprises appears on H3C's screens in real time. A cloud map of flights developed by Wuxi Hanhe Aerotechnics Co identifies plant protection planes flying above the rice fields in Wuxing district, Huzhou, Zhejiang. Zhejiang's farmers use Jiangsu-made IoT-based pesticide spraying equipment to save manpower and improve work efficiency three-fold.

Hangzhou's Yunqi Town and Wuxi's Xuelang Town forged a friendly relationship. The former is a significant cloud computing industrial cluster in Zhejiang, while the latter is responsible for leading IoT industrial development. They work together to revitalize the traditional manufacturing industry.

Wang Jian, chairman of the Technology Commission at Alibaba Group and founder of Alibaba Cloud, said, "Jiangsu and Zhejiang have their own advantages in developing the digital economy, and their cooperation is expected to build a world-class innovation hub in the Yangtze River Delta region to rival the Silicon Valley in the United States."

A mainstream view says that the source of Internet development is social contact between people using WeChat and e-commerce, but the second stage is the social contact of machines, that is, IoT. Jiangsu and Zhejiang are using their advantages to become leaders of China's digital economy.

The World IoT Expo 2018 is set to take place in Wuxi from September 15 to 18. It will welcome many experts, scholars, and company leaders from Jiangsu and Zhejiang as well as other countries and regions to discuss the latest global trends in the IoT industry.