China’s leaders have pursued better integration across its science and technology “systems,” military and civil, since the 1950s. A fused Industrial Internet would represent a historic milestone in achieving that goal.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) recently published the 2022 Work Plan for the Industrial Internet Special Working Group. The full MIIT work plan is available here, and the Securities Times summary is helpful as well. For convenience, MIIT also released the entire plan in a single infographic.

The plan is extensive. A detailed analysis will be a future project on this site. For now, here are three general observations about Digital China’s Industrial Internet program and the 2022 Work Plan.

The Industrial Internet is a high priority for Beijing.

The Industrial Internet has been a centrally directed focal point of Digital China since the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Party Congress in October 2020, followed by MIIT’s Action Plan for the Innovative Development of the Industrial Internet in December 2020.

It is classified as a New Type Infrastructure (NTI) Tier Three digital technology, critical to the digital transformation of industry and manufacturing, and central to developing the digital economy, one of Digital China’s five “ways.” Beijing sees a successful Industrial Internet as essential to China’s future economic development and global competitiveness.

The 2022 Work Plan represents accelerating central direction.

The new Work Plan responds to 2022 Government Work Report guidance to “accelerate the development of the Industrial Internet” (加快发展工业互联网). This acceleration is intended to both promote the development of the digital economy (促进数字经济发展) and strengthen the global layout of Digital China construction (加强数字中国建设整体布局).

The scope is substantial. In infrastructure alone, the Work Plan calls for:

  • Upgrading enterprise intranets to 5G Plus;
  • Expanding enterprise extranets;
  • Constructing multi-level Industrial Internet platforms;
  • “Nurturing” Industrial Internet public service platforms in roughly 10 regions; and
  • “Basically completing” regional sub-centers of the National Industrial Internet Big Data Center in Chongqing, Shandong, Zhejiang, Liaoning, Jiangsu, and Guangdong.

The Industrial Internet offers a rare glimpse of Military-Civil Fusion inside Digital China.

Before 2016, state media and official documents regularly referenced Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) in connection with Digital China. Since then, such references have largely disappeared. But certain programs, like the Industrial Internet Special Working Group still reveal traces of MCF integration.

One member of the Working Group is the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND). SASTIND is linked to China’s MCF Development Strategy and funds academic and commercial research in support of PLA requirements. (See the featured image for the full Industrial Internet Special Working Group membership list; the red arrow points to SASTIND.)

SASTIND public involvement in an NTI program is unusual but not surprising. A program with the scope of the Industrial Internet would naturally be expected to integrate supply and production systems spanning China’s civilian industries, defense industries, and military-industrial base.

China’s leaders have pursued better integration across its science and technology “systems,” military and civil, since the 1950s. A fused Industrial Internet would represent represent a historic milestone in achieving that goal.