Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and four other departments jointly issued the 2024 Work Plan for the Industrial Internet Task Force. The plan explicitly states that efforts will be intensified to promote the widespread application of industrial internet across key industrial chains, particularly by facilitating the migration of diverse industrial equipment, instruments, and production facilities onto cloud platforms. This aims to achieve comprehensive data collection, monitoring, and optimised management throughout the entire lifecycle.
The plan indicates that efforts should accelerate the networking transformation of industrial equipment, supporting enterprises in utilising technologies such as 5G and edge computing to digitally upgrade existing production equipment and lines, while deploying low-cost, lightweight data acquisition terminals. This will directly drive demand for various high-performance, highly reliable physical quantity sensors (such as pressure, force, temperature, and displacement sensors) and intelligent data acquisition modules. Particularly in process-oriented and discrete industries like steel, petrochemicals, and machinery manufacturing, precise sensing and real-time feedback on equipment status, energy consumption, and process parameters have become fundamental to achieving lean production, predictive maintenance, and energy conservation.
Analysts suggest this policy not only provides clear market direction for sensor hardware manufacturers but also imposes higher requirements on sensor data accuracy, stability, standardised communication protocols, and compatibility with industrial internet platforms. The industry will evolve towards integration, intelligence, and networking. Enterprises capable of delivering end-to-end solutions—from precise sensing to reliable data transmission—will gain a competitive edge in this round of industrial upgrading. The implementation of this plan signifies that China's industrial digitalisation is transitioning from isolated applications to a comprehensive, systematic integration across the entire value chain.
