(Yicai) Nov. 20 -- China has selected 10 cities, including Shanghai, for the first batch of projects to pilot the country’s 5G + Industrial Internet initiative in a major push toward the digitalization and modernization of its manufacturing industry.

The other cities are Chengdu, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Suzhou, and Wuhan, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced at the 2024 China 5G + Industrial Internet Conference held in Wuhan yesterday.

The 5G + Industrial Internet strategy is a cornerstone of China’s drive to achieve the digital, interconnected, and intelligent transformation of its large-scale manufacturing sector by 2035. 

Combining 5G, the industrial internet, and artificial intelligence is crucial to the new industrialization, Zhuo Ji, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at the conference.

The MIIT will push the development of 5G + Industrial Internet projects in the 10 cities, urge local governments to solve the problems faced and new issues that arise during the trials, and create an innovation-driven pilot model for others to follow, according to Vice Minister Zhang Yunming.

The first cities, spread across the country, represent major economic and industrial hubs. Shanghai and Shenzhen are global technology and financial centers, while cities such as Chengdu and Wuhan are key manufacturing bases.

The ministry also plans to issue industry development guidelines to set the top-level design for the next stage of industrial internet projects, Zhang noted. It will also publish guidelines for upgrading 5G + Industrial Internet projects, enhancing network infrastructure, developing technologies, and integrating 5G with industrial internet applications to foster a healthy and advanced industrial ecosystem and public service framework.

At the conference, the MIIT also revealed that it will add another batch of 400 5G factories across 39 industries to the first group of 4,000.

Editor: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione