Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding… serves as a Vice Chair of the Alliance of the Industrial Internet and leads the alliance’s Vertical Industry Group for Shipbuilding… Huangpu Wenchong established the CSSC Industrial Internet Company in 2018, a high-end specialized informatization company…  Sun Qian, a business manager for CSSC Industrial Internet, recalls participating in the company’s national-level projects including the Industrial Internet Test Environment for the Guangdong Shipbuilding Cluster and the Secondary Identifier-Resolution Node for the Shipbuilding Industrial Internet; as well as the Guangdong provincial-level 5G + Shipbuilding Industrial Internet Application Demonstration and the Huangpu district-level Cloud Migration of Key Shipbuilding Industrial Equipment.1

“Sun Qian of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) Industrial Internet Company: Deepening Our Commitment to the Industrial Internet and Seizing New Opportunities of the Era,” Industrial Internet Time, March 3, 2021.2

The dual-use ecosystem becomes visible when a major shipyard is not only building military and commercial vessels, but also helping build Industrial Internet platforms, identifier-resolution nodes, 5G applications, and cloud-connected equipment systems for shipbuilding as a sector.

Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding is not only a shipyard. It was also described as a Vice Chair of the Alliance of the Industrial Internet (AII),3 the lead organization for the alliance’s Shipbuilding Vertical Industry Group,4 and the founder of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) Industrial Internet Company. But here is the key point: a major dual-use shipyard — Huangpu Wenchong “is one of CSSC’s largest shipyards and primarily manufactures naval ships and craft, state-owned vessels, military ships, and commercial cargo ships”5 — was helping lead the AII effort to build an Industrial Internet ecosystem for the shipbuilding sector.

The listed projects show the ecosystem logic in concrete form. A testing environment for the Guangdong shipbuilding cluster’s Industrial Internet platform points to platform experimentation at the regional-industrial level. A secondary node for the shipbuilding Industrial Internet identifier-resolution system points to industrial data and object identification infrastructure across the shipbuilding industry. A 5G + shipbuilding Industrial Internet application demonstration points to connected industrial applications. A cloud migration project for key shipbuilding industrial equipment points to the integration of core equipment into cloud-connected systems.

In a 2018 interview with Dassault Systèmes of France, Chen Zhongqian — Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding — reminded us that China’s defense industries were pursuing the Industrial Internet, Military-Civil Fusion, Industrial Digitalization, and “Going Global” simultaneously.6 During the interview, Chen stated that the Huangpu Wenchong Shipyard’s “digitalization program mainly involves developing and deploying an efficient manufacturing management system based on the Dassault Systèmes 3DExperience Platform which integrates design, management, and production within the platform.”7

What is the 3DExperience Platform? In October 2020, Dassault Systèmes explained that the platform “allows high-tech manufacturers to use the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) to increase manufacturing flexibility… seamlessly connecting the entire manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem and leveraging virtual twin experiences to simulate real-world operations.”8

In the context of Huangpu Wenchong Shipyard, this is a concrete example of the dual-use ecosystem problem. A major shipyard producing military and commercial vessels was digitalizing design, management, production, and supply-chain coordination through an industrial platform environment, while also helping organize Industrial Internet infrastructure for the wider shipbuilding sector.

That ecosystem was not being built by one company alone. It involved a major CSSC shipyard, CSSC Industrial Internet Company, the Alliance of the Industrial Internet, national and local Industrial Internet projects, foreign industrial software, 5G applications, identifier-resolution infrastructure, and cloud-connected equipment systems.

Source: “Huangpu Wenchong – Digitalizing Shipbuilding with the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform,” Dassault Systèmes YouTube Channel, August 6, 2018.

A dual-use ecosystem does not mean everything is automatically military. It means the architecture is being designed to reduce friction between civilian and defense-relevant resources. For shipbuilding, that architecture can connect firms, platforms, identifiers, equipment, applications, data, and industrial-chain coordination mechanisms across institutional and industry boundaries. For defense industry requirements, that architecture can make civilian resources, suppliers, technical knowledge, software tools, data systems, and production capabilities easier to find, match, reuse, control, and mobilize. For civilian industry requirements, defense industry technologies, standards, production methods, and management practices can feed back into broader industrial upgrading.

Part Three of this series showed platform evidence. Part Four asks what those platform cases point toward when viewed together, widening the lens from platform evidence to ecosystem logic. It examines how the Industrial Internet can support a dual-use industrial system: one in which civilian and defense resources can be institutionally and publicly distinct, but become increasingly connected through platforms, data layers, industrial applications, supply-chain services, and state-guided coordination mechanisms.

Article Roadmap

This essay is the fourth part in a five-part series that examines the historical linkages between the Military-Civil Fusion Development Strategy and the buildout of the Industrial Internet in the period from 2015 to 2020.

Part One established the strategic and conceptual foundation for the series. The core takeaways are that the formally titled Military-Civil Fusion Development Strategy is not simply China’s version of civil-military integration, but a whole-of-nation effort to fuse innovation, industry, and capability across the full range of military and civilian domains. Also important, the Industrial Internet offers the operating architecture for making that ambition systemic. This foundation is essential for understanding the documentary trail in Part Two linking Military-Civil Fusion to the Industrial Internet.

Part Two turned from concept to evidence by tracing the public documentary record linking the Military-Civil Fusion Development Strategy to the Industrial Internet. The core takeaways are that Military-Civil Fusion and the Industrial Internet were interconnected in central policy guidance by late 2017. Also important, the evidence was public, but widely dispersed, so it was easy to miss. This documentary trail is essential for understanding the examination in Part Three of defense industry platform development.

Part Three moved from documentary evidence to platform cases by examining defense industry participation in Industrial Internet platform development. The core takeaways are that defense industry actors and Military-Civil Fusion service providers were active inside China’s Industrial Internet platform boom. Also important, these platforms show how Military-Civil Fusion could become a service model for making defense-relevant resources more visible, searchable, matchable, and usable across organizational boundaries. This platform evidence is essential for understanding the examination in Part Four of the Industrial Internet as a dual-use ecosystem.

Part Four widens the lens from individual platform cases to the broader Industrial Internet ecosystem. The core takeaways are that China is trying to systematize the dual-use ambiguity that exists in all advanced industrial economies through Military-Civil Fusion, the Industrial Internet, and state-coordinated platform architecture. Also important, this ecosystem works in both directions: civilian capabilities can support defense needs, while defense industry technologies, standards, and production methods can feed broader industrial upgrading. The distinctive structure and intent of China’s state-led Military-Civil Fusion ecosystem is essential background for understanding Part Five’s conclusion on what it means to say Military-Civil Fusion is changing form.

This roadmap covers Part Four only. The following list gives the four main sections of Part Four, with Section 1 divided into two subsections:

The complete five-part series will establish a historical baseline. Once that baseline is in place, future essays will dive deeper into the 2015–2020 period and separately examine accelerating developments in technology and policy from 2021 to the present.

1. SASTIND and the Industrial Internet Policy Trail

The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation took the lead in launching CASICloud; it went live in June 2015, and nearly 130,000 enterprises have already joined the platform. Our goal is to build an Industrial Internet for China … Our innovation isn’t just the innovation of a few individuals, or innovation involving tens of thousands of yuan, or even hundreds of millions of yuan. We must embrace innovation on a grand scale — innovation that begins with disruptive innovation. That’s why we’ve built an Industrial Internet.

Liu Shiquan (Alternate Central Committee Member, CASIC Party Leadership Group Member, and CASIC Deputy General Manager), “An Interview with the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation: Science & Technology Innovation and Military-Civil Fusion,” People’s Livelihood Weekly by People’s Daily, June 6, 2016.9  

Part Three opened a window to see the platform side of the story: defense-relevant Industrial Internet platforms appeared in multiple forms, from CASICloud and central-SOE consolidation to shipbuilding, industrial software, production safety, and supply-chain matching. Part Four turns to the institutional side. It asks where China’s defense-industrial authority appeared in the Industrial Internet policy trail.

The answer is important. The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND)10 treated the Industrial Internet as a key driver of defense industry modernization. In 2018, its director identified the Industrial Internet as one of the technologies needed to raise the digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized level of defense industry manufacturing. At the same time, SASTIND appeared inside the state coordination mechanisms that moved the Industrial Internet from policy guidance into implementation.

That does not make every Industrial Internet project a defense project. It shows something more precise: under Party-state guidance, the defense-industrial bureaucracy framed the Industrial Internet as relevant to its own modernization and was present inside the policy machinery through which the Industrial Internet was organized, coordinated, and expanded.

1a. SASTIND Identified the Industrial Internet as a Defense-Manufacturing Technology

Section 3: Major Tasks / Sub-Section 3.2: Strengthen the Foundation of Intelligent Ship Manufacturing / Article 3.2.4: Build a Shipyard Information Infrastructure:

Transform the internal networks of shipyard enterprises to achieve interconnection and interoperability among various systems such as ship design, manufacturing, management, and services; accelerate the integrated and innovative application of Industrial Internet Identifier Resolution; promote the real-time collection and transmission of massive, multi-source, heterogeneous data information in the shipbuilding process, including (design) digital flow, (personnel) time flow, logistics, capital flow, energy consumption, equipment, and personnel, to form an efficient and reliable Industrial Internet Network Infrastructure for shipyards, and strengthen the construction of enterprise network and data security capabilities; and vigorously advance the construction of Cloud Service Platforms for ship design, manufacturing, management, and services to promote enterprise information integration and collaborative operation of the industrial chain.

“Action Plan to Advance the Intelligent Transformation of Ship Assembly and Construction,” MIIT and SASTIND, December 27, 2018.11

In May 2018, SASTIND Director Zhang Kejian placed the Industrial Internet inside defense industry modernization; the December 2018 MIIT-SASTIND shipbuilding action plan showed what that architecture looked like in practice.

The CASICloud case shows early implementation by a defense conglomerate. SASTIND shows the same connection from the policy side.

In May 2018, Zhang Kejian, director of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, published an article on the innovative development of China’s National Defense Science and Technology Industry in the New Era. In that article, Zhang named three technologies for raising the digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized level of defense industry manufacturing: additive manufacturing, intelligent robots, and the Industrial Internet.12

Zhang was not discussing the Industrial Internet as a civilian e-commerce tool, a smart-factory label, or a generic manufacturing upgrade. He placed it inside the modernization of defense industry manufacturing. In SASTIND’s own defense-industrial context, the Industrial Internet appeared as one of the technologies needed to raise the digital, networked, and intelligent level of the military-industrial production base.

The surrounding policy language reinforces the point. Zhang called for building an advanced National Defense Science and Technology Industrial System with Chinese Characteristics, strengthening innovation capacity, accelerating advanced industrial technologies, and improving the quality and efficiency of weapons and equipment development and production. The Industrial Internet appeared inside that larger effort to transform how the defense industry researches, develops, manufactures, and supports military-relevant systems.13

The December 2018 shipbuilding action plan cited in this section’s epigraph shows what that language meant when translated into sectoral policy. Issued jointly by MIIT and SASTIND, the plan did not describe the Industrial Internet as a narrow factory-automation tool. It called for shipyard information infrastructure that could connect design, manufacturing, management, and services; support Industrial Internet identifier-resolution applications; collect and transmit massive, multi-source, heterogeneous data from the shipbuilding process; strengthen network and data security; and build cloud service platforms for ship design, manufacturing, management, and service.

That is ecosystem language. The action plan treated shipbuilding modernization as a problem of networks, data flows, identifiers, cloud platforms, security capabilities, information integration, and industrial-chain collaborative operation. In other words, the Industrial Internet was being framed as connective infrastructure for the shipbuilding industrial chain.

Notice from MIIT and SASTIND on Issuing the Action Plan to Advance the Intelligent Transformation of Ship Assembly and Construction (2019-2021)

Issuing Authority: MIIT and SASTIND

Document Number: MIIT Joint Equipment [2018] No. 287

Date of Issuance: December 27, 2018

This is different from saying that every Industrial Internet project is a defense project. It is not. The Industrial Internet is a national industrial modernization program. But Zhang’s May 2018 article and the MIIT-SASTIND shipbuilding action plan show that the defense industry saw the same architecture as relevant to its own manufacturing transformation. The technology was not outside the defense-industrial system. It was named as part of the system’s future and then applied to shipbuilding infrastructure.

SASTIND is not an ordinary industrial bureaucracy. It is the State Council bureau responsible for managing China’s National Defense Science and Technology Industrial sector, including the organization and coordination of major weapons-equipment R&D and production issues across nuclear, aerospace, aviation, shipbuilding, ordnance, and electronics industries. When SASTIND identifies the Industrial Internet as a technology for improving defense industry manufacturing, and then joins MIIT in applying Industrial Internet architecture to shipbuilding, the military-civil implications are not external to the evidence. They are embedded in the institution making and implementing the policy.14

Uphold Military-Civil Fusion and cross-sector fusion to build an open, efficient, cooperative, and mutually beneficial intelligent manufacturing ecosystem, while strengthening domestic and international exchange and cooperation in areas such as standard-setting and talent development.

“Action Plan to Advance the Intelligent Transformation of Ship Assembly and Construction,” MIIT and SASTIND, December 27, 2018.15

Together, Zhang Kejian’s article and the MIIT-SASTIND shipbuilding action plan mark a second layer in the evidence trail. CASIC shows a defense conglomerate building an Industrial Internet platform. SASTIND shows the defense-industry regulator identifying the Industrial Internet as part of defense manufacturing modernization and applying that logic to shipbuilding infrastructure. The Industrial Internet was not merely adjacent to Military-Civil Fusion. It was entering the defense-industrial system as a technology for reorganizing production, data, coordination, security, and capability.

1b. From Working Groups to Work Plans: SASTIND Inside the Coordination Structure

A 2018 Industrial Internet Summit Forum — guided by the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND), the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), and the Alliance of the Industrial Internet (AII), and hosted by China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) and other organizations — was recently held in Chengdu.

“The Number of Enterprises Registered on the First Industrial Internet Platform (CASICloud) has Reached Nearly 1.7 million,” People’s Daily, June 21, 2018.16

SASTIND was not only speaking about the Industrial Internet from the outside; it appeared inside the coordination structure that moved Industrial Internet policy into implementation.

Statements inform, but coordination structures implement. If the Industrial Internet had been treated as wholly outside defense industry modernization, SASTIND’s presence inside its central implementation structure would be harder to explain. That is why the Industrial Internet Special Working Group and its annual work plans are so important. They show not only what Beijing wanted to build, but also which institutions were brought into the process of building it.

The institutional trail begins in 2018. In June of that year, MIIT issued both the Industrial Internet Development Action Plan (2018–2020) and the Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2018 Work Plan. Both were approved on May 31 and issued on June 8. The Work Plan established the Industrial Internet Special Working Group under the National Manufacturing Great Power Construction Leading Small Group and convened its founding meeting that same month. This was not an ad hoc arrangement. It was a formal coordination structure embedded in one of Beijing’s central manufacturing-policy systems.17

SASTIND was part of that structure from the start.

In the Industrial Internet Development Action Plan (2018–2020), SASTIND appeared in the responsibility structure for advancing key elements of Industrial Internet development. One set of responsible agencies was tasked with expanding pilot demonstrations and improving Industrial Internet innovation and application in large enterprises, while accelerating wider adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises. Another set was tasked with establishing the basic institutional framework for fused Industrial Internet development by 2020. That included improving interdepartmental and central-local coordination, facilitating system integration across regions and departments, strengthening collaborative development mechanisms, and supporting coordinated work in technology, standards, applications, and financing.18

The Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2018 Work Plan made SASTIND’s role more concrete. It assigned SASTIND’s System Engineering Third Department responsibility for carrying out pilot demonstrations linking relevant systems with industrial control systems in support of innovative applications such as intelligentized production, remote services, networked collaborative manufacturing, smart connected products, and integrated identifier resolution.19

The SASTIND System Engineering Third Department role deserves attention. Public information on current SASTIND departmental responsibilities is limited. However, SASTIND’s predecessor organization, the former Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), identified its System Engineering Third Department as the Shipbuilding Industry Management Office. Because SASTIND retained much of COSTIND’s bureaucratic structure, the association between the System Engineering Third Department and shipbuilding is highly likely, though not definitively confirmed from current public information. If that association held in 2018, SASTIND was not simply present in the working group as a passive member. It was assigned implementation work connected to industrial systems and likely linked to one of China’s key defense-facing industries.

By 2022, the Industrial Internet had moved from startup into rapid growth. The Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2022 Work Plan shows that acceleration clearly. The plan coordinated work across “5G + Industrial Internet,” enterprise network transformation, identifier resolution, platform systems, industrial data, industrial safety, standards, technology, security, finance, talent, and organization. This was no longer a narrow pilot program. It was a broad state-coordinated architecture for industrial digital transformation.20

Shipbuilding appeared directly in the 2022 Work Plan. The plan called for applying 5G in ship final assembly and construction, completing 5G fused network deployment, and demonstrating typical application scenarios. Shipbuilding also appeared in the identifier-resolution section, where the plan called for active identifier carriers to be deployed at scale in industries including instruments, automobiles, and ships.

Unlike in 2018, SASTIND was not named in the individual 2022 shipbuilding task assignments. But MIIT’s accompanying infographic identified SASTIND as a member of the Industrial Internet Special Working Group. The point is not that SASTIND directed every shipbuilding task in 2022. The point is that SASTIND remained inside the coordination structure while shipbuilding remained visible as a named application field.

That pattern shows three elements developing together over time: the Industrial Internet as a national coordination system, SASTIND as the defense-industrial authority inside that system, and shipbuilding as an explicitly named application domain. These were not isolated facts. They formed an institutional trail.

The work plans therefore add a different kind of evidence than the CASICloud case study or Zhang Kejian’s 2018 article. CASICloud showed a defense conglomerate building platform architecture. Zhang showed SASTIND identifying the Industrial Internet as a defense-manufacturing technology. The work plans show the defense-industrial bureaucracy embedded inside the state’s Industrial Internet coordination structure from the beginning, while shipbuilding gradually became more visible within the implementation agenda.

That does not prove that the Industrial Internet was formally labeled a Military-Civil Fusion program. It shows something more important for this series: China’s defense-industrial authority was present inside the architecture through which the Industrial Internet was organized, coordinated, and expanded. For understanding how Military-Civil Fusion may be changing form, that institutional trail matters.

The next question is what happens when the connection becomes explicit. That is where a 2023 Chinese academic paper on Military-Civil Fusion shines more light.

2. The 2023 Paper Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

It is necessary to realize the docking of military procurement by defense enterprises with advanced technologies and products from private enterprises through Military-Civil Fusion, and to utilize Industrial Internet methods to highly integrate, coordinate, and fuse the processes of weapon and equipment design, process engineering, manufacturing, inspection, and maintenance, thereby achieving the integrated design and manufacturing of weapons and equipment. Currently, while many domestic scholars have conducted extensive technical research, a unified, fused platform for supply-demand docking, collaborative design, and production manufacturing has not yet been formed.21

Li Wujie, Wang Jiannan, and Hong Binxiang, “Construction and Consideration of the Military-Civil Fusion Industrial Internet Service Platform,” New Generation of Information Technology, June 2023.22

This 2023 New Generation of Information Technology paper made explicit what the earlier evidence had been building toward: the Industrial Internet could serve as a platform mechanism for Military-Civil Fusion itself.

By 2023, the connection between Military-Civil Fusion and the Industrial Internet was no longer only implicit. That year, researchers linked to China’s Industrial Internet system proposed the creation of a Military-Civil Fusion Industrial Internet Service Platform. The title alone placed the two concepts directly together. But the argument went further. The authors described a platform designed to support military-to-civil transfer, civil-to-military participation, and the fused development of military combat power and local economic construction.

The paper’s significance is not that it created a new policy line by itself. It was an academic article, not a State Council plan. Its importance is that it showed how informed Chinese researchers understood the problem. Military-Civil Fusion requires more than conferences, policy language, and bilateral technology-transfer channels. It requires mechanisms for discovering demand, matching supply, coordinating actors, supporting technology transfer, protecting information, and integrating military and civilian resources across sectors and regions.

The authors also identified two bottlenecks that are important for this article. First, weapons-equipment life-cycle management remained fragmented across requirement release, demonstration, design, manufacturing, procurement, operation, and maintenance. Data was difficult to interoperate, making full life-cycle management and rapid iterative upgrading difficult. Second, the broader Military-Civil Fusion market remained divided among military units, defense industrial groups, local governments, and private enterprises, each operating inside its own closed system.

Those are problems the Industrial Internet is built to solve: fragmented systems, disconnected data, divided markets, and coordination across organizational boundaries.

The proposed platform would not simply list available technologies. It would create a digital environment for organizing relationships among military users, defense enterprises, civilian firms, universities, research institutes, local governments, industrial parks, investors, service providers, and technical experts. It would support movement in both directions: military technologies into civilian markets, and civilian technologies into military and defense-industrial applications.

The paper’s strongest language appears in its implementation section. Based on the Industrial Internet’s standard logic of connecting All Factors of Production, All Industrial Chains, and All Value Chains, the platform would support a full life-cycle equipment-development process: requirement analysis, scheme design, simulation and verification, production and manufacturing, and operation and maintenance support. It would also rely on full-process tracking of equipment orders to overcome geographic constraints and rapidly organize distributed manufacturing resources into a joint production system inside and outside the enterprise.

This is the analytical shift. The Industrial Internet does not need to be labeled everywhere as Military-Civil Fusion to perform a Military-Civil Fusion function. If a platform connects civilian firms to defense needs, defense technologies to civilian industrial chains, local industrial resources to military-relevant production, and industrial data to coordination mechanisms, then the function is already present.

That changes the unit of analysis. Military-Civil Fusion is often studied through firms, universities, laboratories, procurement channels, or ownership ties. Those remain important. But the 2023 paper points toward another unit of analysis: the platform. Once Military-Civil Fusion is organized through platforms, the question is no longer only whether a specific actor is “military” or “civilian.” The question is how the system connects, filters, ranks, secures, and mobilizes capabilities across the boundary.

The paper therefore provides a bridge between the earlier evidence and the sectoral evidence that follows. It makes explicit what CASICloud, SASTIND, and the Industrial Internet work plans had already begun to suggest: the Industrial Internet can become a service architecture for Military-Civil Fusion.

The next place to look is where this architecture begins to appear in a major defense-relevant industry.

Shipbuilding is the clearest case.

3. Shipbuilding Shows the National Architecture Taking Shape

The Industrial Internet is the infrastructure that supports the digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized development of the shipbuilding industry.

“Reference Guide on the Fused Application of the Industrial Internet in the Shipbuilding Industry,” Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, June 5, 2025

Shipbuilding is where the Industrial Internet–Military-Civil Fusion connection becomes especially concrete: a defense-relevant industry organized through platforms, identifier resolution, lifecycle data, and industrial-chain coordination.

China’s shipbuilding industry is both civilian and defense-relevant. It builds commercial vessels, offshore engineering platforms, marine equipment, and naval vessels. It sits at the intersection of industrial capacity, maritime power, supply-chain coordination, advanced manufacturing, and national defense. If the Industrial Internet can reorganize shipbuilding, it can affect one of the most important military-civil industrial bases in China’s system.

Shipbuilding’s appearance in Industrial Internet policy and implementation guidance reveals how the architecture is taking shape in a strategically important sector. In the 2022 Industrial Internet Special Working Group Work Plan, shipbuilding appeared directly in the section on “5G + Industrial Internet.” The plan called for applying 5G in ship final assembly and construction, completing 5G fused network deployment, and demonstrating typical application scenarios. Shipbuilding also appeared in the identifier-resolution section, where the plan called for active identifier carriers to be deployed at scale in industries including instruments, automobiles, and ships.23

These details may sound technical, but they point to a larger transformation. Shipbuilding is not a simple assembly process. It requires coordination across design, materials, components, modules, yards, suppliers, equipment, labor, inspection, testing, delivery, operation, maintenance, and lifecycle support. A ship is a complex industrial system produced through a complex industrial chain. The Industrial Internet is designed precisely for this kind of problem: connecting dispersed actors, equipment, data, processes, and production stages into a more coordinated digital system.

The shipbuilding evidence also connects back to the platform story. A 2020 Deloitte report on Guangzhou’s Huangpu District identified CSSC Smart-IC alongside CASICloud and Ali Feilonglink as national Industrial Internet platforms under construction in Guangzhou Science City. The same report noted Huangpu District’s push to build a national-level Industrial Internet identifier-resolution node, including planned access by Huangpu Shipyard Offshore Engineering.24

By 2025, the connection became clearer. MIIT released a Reference Guide on the Fused Application of the Industrial Internet in the Shipbuilding Industry, describing the Industrial Internet as the infrastructure supporting the digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized development of shipbuilding. The guide applied the Industrial Internet across the full shipbuilding lifecycle, including design, construction, supply-chain coordination, quality control, operation, maintenance, and service.

The lifecycle framing sharpens the point. It means the Industrial Internet is not being applied only to one factory floor or one shipyard task. It is being applied to the process by which ships are designed, built, tested, delivered, operated, maintained, upgraded, and supported. In a defense-relevant industry, that kind of lifecycle architecture has obvious military-civil implications.

Shipbuilding is an industry where civilian and defense capabilities are deeply intertwined. When the Industrial Internet is applied across the full lifecycle of such an industry, it can strengthen the same industrial base that supports commercial maritime power, offshore engineering, state vessels, and naval modernization.

That is what makes shipbuilding such a revealing case. CASICloud shows a defense conglomerate building platform architecture. SASTIND shows the defense-industrial regulator recognizing the Industrial Internet as a defense-manufacturing technology. The 2023 paper shows Chinese researchers proposing an explicit Military-Civil Fusion Industrial Internet Service Platform. Shipbuilding shows how the architecture can be applied inside a major military-civil industry.

In that setting, Military-Civil Fusion no longer looks only like a civilian company supplying a defense customer or a defense technology moving into a civilian market. It looks like a digital-industrial system capable of linking design, production, suppliers, standards, data, platforms, equipment, inspection, maintenance, and lifecycle support across the boundary between civilian and defense-relevant production.

That is the larger significance of the shipbuilding evidence. It shows what platform-based Military-Civil Fusion could look like at industrial scale: not a single transfer, not a single firm, not a single technology, but a connected production architecture for a strategic industry.

4. The Ecosystem Is Visible, But Not Complete

So, is there an Industrial Internet ecosystem supporting Military-Civil Fusion?

The evidence in Part Four supports a cautious yes. Not a single unified military platform. Not a completed national system. But the outlines of an ecosystem are visible: SASTIND inside Industrial Internet coordination structures, shipbuilding named in work plans, Industrial Internet architecture applied to shipbuilding modernization, Chinese researchers proposing a Military-Civil Fusion Industrial Internet Service Platform, and shipbuilding emerging as a sector where platforms, identifiers, data, 5G applications, cloud services, and lifecycle coordination begin to converge.

That ecosystem is platform-based, data-centered, and increasingly sector-specific. It connects firms, industrial chains, localities, state-owned enterprises, private companies, universities, research institutes, and defense industry actors through platforms, identifier-resolution infrastructure, cloud-connected equipment, industrial applications, security systems, and supply-chain services.

The shipbuilding case shows the stakes. Shipbuilding is not simply civilian or military. It is a strategic industrial base that supports commercial maritime power, offshore engineering, state vessels, and naval modernization. When the Industrial Internet is applied across ship design, construction, supply-chain coordination, quality control, operation, maintenance, and lifecycle support, it does not have to be labeled Military-Civil Fusion at every point to serve a Military-Civil Fusion function.

That is the central conclusion of Part Four. The Industrial Internet ecosystem supporting Military-Civil Fusion is not a single object. It is better understood as an emerging architecture: policy coordination, sectoral implementation, platform construction, data infrastructure, industrial software, networked equipment, and supply-chain services gradually making civilian and defense-relevant resources easier to connect, adapt, and use.

The system is not complete. Its effectiveness remains uneven, and the evidence does not prove that Beijing can make every part work as designed. Going forward, the key indicators will be sector-specific Industrial Internet platforms, identifier-resolution nodes, connected equipment, data-security systems, and lifecycle-management tools in defense-relevant industries.

That sets up the final question for Part Five: what does it mean, analytically and strategically, when Military-Civil Fusion changes form from a policy label or technology-transfer channel into a platform-based industrial architecture?

The ecosystem is visible. It is not complete. But the architecture is real enough to analyze.

I use AI tools to support my editing, research, and translation process. Learn more on my AI Transparency Page.

Footnotes

  1. For readability, I abbreviated the lengthy noun phrases originally used for the project titles. Here are the original non-abbreviated national-level project titles: “Guangdong Provincial Shipbuilding Industry Cluster Zone Industrial Internet Platform Testing and Validation Environment Construction Project” (广东省船舶产业聚集区工业互联网平台试验测试环境建设项目) and “Shipbuilding Industry Industrial Internet Identifier-Resolution Secondary Node Construction Project” (船舶行业工业互联网标识解析二级节点建设项目). This is the provincial-level project title: “5G + Shipbuilding Industrial Internet Application Demonstration Project” (5G+船舶工业互联应用示范项目). This is the district-level project title: “Shipbuilding Industry Key Industrial Equipment Cloud-Migration Project” (船舶行业关键工业设备上云项目). ↩︎
  2. “Sun Qian of CSSC Industrial Internet: Deepening Our Commitment to the Industrial Internet and Seizing New Opportunities of the Era” (中船互联孙倩：深耕工业互联网，紧抓时代新机遇), Industrial Internet Time (工联网), March 3, 2021. Industrial Internet Time (工联网), supervised by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, is a converged media outlet focused on the Industrial Internet sector. “Industrial Internet Time” is the outlet’s preferred English-language translation of its title. ↩︎
  3. “黄埔文冲 . . . 作为工业互联网产业联盟副理事长单位.” See, “Sun Qian of CSSC Industrial Internet: Deepening Our Commitment to the Industrial Internet and Seizing New Opportunities of the Era” (中船互联孙倩：深耕工业互联网，紧抓时代新机遇), Industrial Internet Time (工联网), March 3, 2021. The Alliance of the Industrial Internet is a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology-supervised “non-profit organization formed voluntarily by domestic and international enterprises.” See the Alliance of the Industrial Internet Charter (联盟章程) and Members. For a detailed study on the Alliance of the Industrial Internet, see “The Alliance You’re Not Supposed to Notice,” CPA Jim Substack, January 27, 2026. ↩︎
  4. “联盟垂直行业组船舶行业牵头单位.” This term refers to the specific group within the Alliance dedicated to the shipbuilding sector. See, “Sun Qian of CSSC Industrial Internet: Deepening Our Commitment to the Industrial Internet and Seizing New Opportunities of the Era” (中船互联孙倩：深耕工业互联网，紧抓时代新机遇), Industrial Internet Time (工联网), March 3, 2021. ↩︎
  5. In a 2018 interview with Dassault Systèmes of France, Chen Zhongqian — Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding — stated in 2018 that the shipyard “主要生产海军舰艇， 国有船只， 军舰， 和 商用货船等一系列船只。” Translated literally, Chen stated that the shipyard “primarily builds naval ships and craft, state-owned vessels, military ships, and commercial cargo ships.” Translated contextually, Chen stated that the shipyard “primarily builds naval combatants, state-owned institutional ships, naval auxiliaries & patrol craft, and commercial merchant ships.” See, “Huangpu Wenchong – Digitalizing Shipbuilding with the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform,” Dassault Systèmes YouTube Channel, August 6, 2018; and “CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Corporation Co., LTD,” Dassault Systèmes website, Accessed June 19, 2026; underlying document and video dated 2018-2020. ↩︎
  6. See Part One and Part Two of this series. ↩︎
  7. In a 2018 interview with Dassault Systèmes of France, Chen Zhongqian — Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding — stated “CSSC Huangpu Wenchong uses the Dassault Systèmes 3D Experience for digitalized manufacturing… Our digitalization program mainly involves developing and deploying an efficient manufacturing management system based on Dassault Systèmes 3D Experience platform which integrates design, management, and production inside the platform.” (中船黄埔文冲使用 Dassault Systèmes 3D Experience 平台 数字化制造。。。 我们的数字化项目主要以达素系统的 3D Experience 平台为基础开发和部署高效的制造管理系统；集设计， 管理 和生产于一体在 3D Experience 平台中。) See, “Huangpu Wenchong – Digitalizing Shipbuilding with the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform,” Dassault Systèmes YouTube Channel, August 6, 2018; and “CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Corporation Co., LTD,” Dassault Systèmes website, Accessed June 19, 2026; underlying document and video dated 2018-2020. ↩︎
  8. See, “5G-Enabled IIoT for a More Agile Smart Factory,” Dassault Systèmes YouTube Channel, October 15, 2020. ↩︎
  9. “航天科工集团率先做了一个航天云网，去年6月份开始上线，现在航天互联网已经上线了有近13万家企业了。我们想构建的是一个中国的工业互联网 。。。刚才说了，我们的创新不是简单的几个人的创新，几万块钱的创新，几个亿的创新。我们必须是一个大概念的创新，一个从颠覆性的创新开始。所以，我们做了一个工业互联网。” See, Liu Shiquan (刘石泉), “An Interview with the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation: Science & Technology Innovation and Military-Civil Fusion” (对话航天科工：科技创新与军民融合), People’s Livelihood Weekly by People’s Daily (民生周刊), June 6, 2016. ↩︎
  10. The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND; 国家国防科技工业局 commonly abbreviated 国家国防科工局 or 国防科工局) is a State Council bureau administered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at the deputy ministerial level. Its public mandate places it at the center of China’s defense science, technology, and industry system, making its presence in the Industrial Internet Special Working Group significant for understanding the program’s military-civil implications. According to the SASTIND website, “the State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense is the administrative agency of the Chinese government responsible for managing the national defense science, technology, and industry sector. It is charged with organizing and coordinating major issues concerning the research, development, and production of weapons and equipment across fields such as nuclear energy, aerospace, aviation, shipbuilding, ordnance, and electronics, as well as with building core capabilities within the defense industries.” (国家国防科技工业局是中国政府负责管理国防科技工业的行政管理机关，负责核、航天、航空、船舶、兵器、电子等领域武器装备科研生产重大事项的组织协调和军工核心能力建设。) ↩︎
  11. “三、重点任务 / （二）夯实船舶智能制造基础 / 4. 构建船厂信息基础设施。改造船厂企业内网络，实现船舶设计、制造、管理和服务等各类系统的互联互通；加快工业互联网标识解析集成创新应用，推进（设计）数字流、（人员）工时流、物流、资金流、能耗、设备、人员等船舶制造过程海量多源异构数据信息的实时采集与传输，形成高效可靠的船厂工业互联网网络基础设施，加强企业网络与数据安全能力建设；全力推动船舶设计、制造、管理和服务等云服务平台建设，推动企业信息集成与产业链协同运营。” See, “MIIT and SASTIND Issue Notice on the Action Plan to Advance the Intelligent Transformation of Ship Assembly and Construction” (工业和信息化部 国防科工局关于印发《推进船舶总装建造智能化转型行动计划（2019-2021年）》的通知), MIIT (工业和信息化部), December 27, 2018. ↩︎
  12. See, Zhang Kejian (张克俭), “Striving to Write a New Chapter in the Innovative Development of the National Defense, Science, and Technology Industry in the New Era” (奋力谱写新时代国防科技工业创新发展新篇章), SASTIND, May 18, 2018. ↩︎
  13. See, Zhang Kejian (张克俭), “Striving to Write a New Chapter in the Innovative Development of the National Defense, Science, and Technology Industry in the New Era” (奋力谱写新时代国防科技工业创新发展新篇章), SASTIND, May 18, 2018. ↩︎
  14. The State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND; 国家国防科技工业局 commonly abbreviated 国家国防科工局 or 国防科工局) is a State Council bureau administered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at the deputy ministerial level. Its public mandate places it at the center of China’s defense science, technology, and industry system, making its presence in the Industrial Internet Special Working Group significant for understanding the program’s military-civil implications. According to the SASTIND website, “the State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense is the administrative agency of the Chinese government responsible for managing the national defense science, technology, and industry sector. It is charged with organizing and coordinating major issues concerning the research, development, and production of weapons and equipment across fields such as nuclear energy, aerospace, aviation, shipbuilding, ordnance, and electronics, as well as with building core capabilities within the defense industries.” (国家国防科技工业局是中国政府负责管理国防科技工业的行政管理机关，负责核、航天、航空、船舶、兵器、电子等领域武器装备科研生产重大事项的组织协调和军工核心能力建设。) ↩︎
  15. “坚持军民融合、跨界融合，建立开放高效、合作共赢的智能制造生态体系，在标准制定、人才培养等方面加强国内外交流合作。” See, “MIIT and SASTIND Issue Notice on the Action Plan to Advance the Intelligent Transformation of Ship Assembly and Construction” (工业和信息化部 国防科工局关于印发《推进船舶总装建造智能化转型行动计划（2019-2021年）》的通知), MIIT (工业和信息化部), December 27, 2018. ↩︎
  16. “由国防科工局、全国工商联、共青团中央、工业互联网产业联盟等单位指导，中国航天科工集团有限公司等单位主办的2018工业互联网高峰论坛日前在成都举行。” See, “The Number of Enterprises Registered on the First Industrial Internet Platform has Reached Nearly 1.7 million,” (首个工业互联网注册企业近170万家) People’s Daily (人民日报), June 21, 2018. ↩︎
  17. See, “Industrial Internet Development Action Plan (2018–2020)” (工业互联网发展行动计划 2018-2020年), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工信部), Approved on May 31, 2018; Issued on June 8, 2018; and “Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2018 Work Plan” (2018 工业互联网专项工作组 2018 年工作计划), MIIT, Approved May 31, 2018; Issued June 8, 2018. ↩︎
  18. “Industrial Internet Development Action Plan (2018–2020)” (工业互联网发展行动计划 2018-2020年), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (工信部), Approved on May 31, 2018; Issued on June 8, 2018. ↩︎
  19. “Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2018 Work Plan” (2018 工业互联网专项工作组 2018 年工作计划), MIIT, Approved May 31, 2018; Issued June 8, 2018. ↩︎
  20. “Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2022 Work Plan” (工业互联网专项工作组2022年工作计划), MIIT, April 06, 2022. ↩︎
  21. “需通过军民融合的手段实现军方企业采购与民营企业先进技术和产品的对接，利用工业互联网的方式将武器装备设计、工艺、制造、检验和维护过程高度集成、协同和融合，实现武器装备设计制造一体化。目前，国内很多学者做了很多技术研究，但未形成供需对接、协同设计和生产制造一体化融合的平台。” See, “NGIT | Can the Industrial Internet Advance Military-Civil Fusion?,” Digital China Wins the Future, July 12, 2023. ↩︎
  22. “Li Wujie (李悟杰), Wang Jiannan (王剑男), and Hong Binxiang (洪斌祥), “Construction and Consideration of the Military-Civil Fusion Industrial Internet Service Platform” (军民融合工业互联网服务平台建设与思考), New Generation of Information Technology (新一代信息技术), June 2023. New Generation of Information Technology is an academic journal published by the Chinese Institute of Electronics, an academic association supervised by Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The article’s authors include Wang Jiannan of the China Academy of the Industrial Internet and Beijing Gonglian Technology Company, along with Li Wujie and Hong Binxiang of Beijing Gonglian Technology Company. Beijing Gonglian Technology Company is directly subordinate to the China Academy of the Industrial Internet, which is itself directly subordinate to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. ↩︎
  23. “Industrial Internet Special Working Group 2022 Work Plan” (工业互联网专项工作组2022年工作计划), MIIT, April 06, 2022. ↩︎
  24. “Research Report on the Investment Environment of Huangpu District, Guangzhou,” Deloitte, 2020. ↩︎