The shipbuilding industry serves as an important industrial foundation for safeguarding national security and upholding maritime rights and interests. With a solid informatized foundation, an urgent need for transformation, and a manageable level of difficulty to implement, it is a key sector for advancing the fused application of the Industrial Internet.

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

China’s shipbuilding industry has launched a major initiative to digitally transform its entire manufacturing process from ship design to ship delivery, according to a newly released 116-page document from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) titled the Reference Guide on the Fused Application of the Industrial Internet in the Shipbuilding Industry. The industrial ecosystem being formed to support the digitalized transformation of China’s shipbuilding industry is not a narrow industrial upgrade. It is a strategic national project supporting both economic competitiveness and defense modernization.

The new MIIT guide lays out a detailed roadmap for fusing the Industrial Internet across the entire shipbuilding industrial chain, covering both civilian and defense industrial sectors. The digital transformation of advanced manufacturing, including heavy industry, via the Industrial Internet has been a core element of Digital China since its elevation to a national strategy in 2017. In this newest phase, the shipbuilding and petrochemical industries are being targeted for comprehensive industrial digitalization.

A lightly-edited selection of Google Translate excerpts from the “Reference Guide on the Fused Application of the Industrial Internet in the Shipbuilding Industry” can be found here. My analysis of the Guide looking specifically at the implications for Military-Civil Fusion across China’s defense industries including shipbuilding can be found here.

A New Phase of Digital China: From Industrial Upgrade to System Integration

The Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the development of the Industrial Internet. In recent years, through the concerted efforts of all stakeholders, spanning government, industry, academia, research institutions, and end-users, our country’s Industrial Internet development has gradually established its own conceptual framework, implementation pathways, and tangible achievements.

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

China’s shipbuilding sector has become the first defense industrial sector to publicly launch system-wide digital transformation via the Industrial Internet, a historic milestone in the Digital China strategy. The newly released MIIT reference guide lays out a detailed roadmap for integrating digital technologies across the entire shipbuilding lifecycle from research and design to manufacturing, delivery, and maintenance. The shipbuilding industry, long recognized as a strategic pillar of national power, is now being repositioned as a testbed for the next stage of Digital China.

This is not a narrow effort to modernize a legacy industry. It is the construction of a unified industrial system powered by data, connectivity, and intelligent decision-making. The significance lies in scope. Rather than digitalizing individual firms or processes, the initiative seeks the digital-intelligent fusion of the entire industrial chain, linking suppliers, manufacturers, and end users into a continuous, data-driven system.

The guide’s strategic objective is to establish a modernized shipbuilding system (现代化船舶制造体系), one that leverages massive data collection, high-quality analytics, intelligent decision-making, and supply chain resilience to create an ecosystem that is efficient, safe, and green. This transformation is driven by the fused application of “new generation information technologies like big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence” throughout the supply chain. The focus of the current effort, however, is on the Industrial Internet, seen as essential “to improve collaboration, efficiency and resilience across the shipbuilding supply chain and promoting the digital transformation of the entire industrial chain.”

Why the Industrial Internet Matters

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 (工业互联网与船舶行业融合应用参考指南), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, June 5, 2025

The Industrial Internet1 is classified as a Tier Three application model under New Type Infrastructure, as defined by the National Development and Review Commission in April 2020. It has been a key element of Digital China since its elevation to a national strategy in 2017. It has been a centrally-directed priority of the national Digital China strategy since the Fifth Plenum of the 19th Party Congress in October 2020, reflected in the release of two national-level guidance documents on the Industrial Internet by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) that same year.

The China Academy of the Industrial Internet describes the Industrial Internet as an industrial ecosystem that “deeply integrates a new generation of information and communication technology with the industrial economy. By comprehensively connecting people, machines, things, and systems, it creates a new manufacturing and services system that spans the entire manufacturing and value chains. From industry to manufacturing, the Industrial Internet enables digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized development.” The Academy also notes that the Industrial Internet is “an important cornerstone of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

The “155N” Strategy for Digital-Intelligent Shipbuilding

Addressing the digital transformation requirements of the shipbuilding industry and aiming to leverage digital empowerment to enhance quality, reduce costs, and boost efficiency, we are advancing the fused development of the Industrial Internet and the shipbuilding industry, grounded in lean principles and centered on the core themes of digitalized, networkized, and intelligentized shipbuilding.

Reference Guide on the Fused Application of the Industrial Internet in the Shipbuilding Industry (工业互联网与船舶行业融合应用参考指南), Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, June 5, 2025

The reference guide outlines a “155N” fused application development strategy for the Industrial Internet and the shipbuilding industry. The strategy aims to “comprehensively enhance digitalization across all aspects of shipbuilding including design, production, and management; promote High Quality Development; and build a modernized shipbuilding system with world-leading digital capabilities.”

The four individual components of the “155N” strategy are further broken down as follows:

(1) Focus on “One” Goal: Promote the development of an efficient, safe, and green modernized shipbuilding system by leveraging massive data collection, aggregation, analysis, and mining. Fully harness the value of big data resources, unlock the full potential of data as a key factor of production, and build intelligent, data-driven capabilities for analysis and decision optimization that empower every aspect of a modernized shipbuilding system.

(2) Consolidate the “Five” Foundations: Build the basic capabilities of the Industrial Internet around data, networks, identifiers, platforms, and safety, and provide integrated service capability and support for the digitalized development of the shipbuilding industry.

(3) Strengthen the “Five” Safeguards: Build organizational, institutional, financial, talent and cultural safeguard systems to comprehensively guarantee the orderly and efficient advancement of the digital transformation of the shipbuilding industry.

(4) Form “N” (i.e. unlimited) Large Application Scenarios: Create various intelligentized fused application scenarios in key links such as ship research and development, production, and management. Accelerate model innovation, and draw ultimate value from the Industrial Internet empowering the digital transformation of the shipbuilding industry.

Still Early, but Moving Fast

In recent years, in response to domestic and international developments and the need for its own transformation and upgrading, China’s shipbuilding industry has, building on the continuous improvement of its core infrastructure, actively explored the application of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, virtual simulation, the Industrial Internet, 5G, and digital twins, and has achieved some success.

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

The reference guide also notes that the fused application of the Industrial Internet in the shipbuilding industry remains in a developmental stage. Current implementation efforts are still exploratory and phased. Future revisions and updated editions of the reference guide will incorporate practical experience and feedback from across the industry.

While “some progress” has been made in applying digital technologies, including the Industrial Internet, the guide aims to accelerate deeper fusion and innovation. It focuses on key areas requiring modernization: shipbuilding R&D and design, production efficiency, quality monitoring and traceability, worker safety, energy efficiency and green development, and supply chain efficiency and resilience.

Military-Civil Fusion in Shipbuilding

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the upstream of the shipbuilding industry consists of various raw materials and supporting equipment, primarily including steel, non-ferrous metals, composite materials, propulsion systems, and electrical equipment. The midstream encompasses the actual manufacturing of vessels, while the downstream comprises application sectors, such as shipping, national defense industries, and marine resource development, as well as vessel-related service segments, including leasing and maintenance.

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

The Industrial Internet also provides rare insights into the Military-Civil Fusion dimension of Digital China. While this theme was frequently emphasized in state media and official documents prior to 2016, it has largely faded from public discourse in recent years. Nonetheless, occasional signs remain, such as State Administration of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) membership in the Special Working Group on the Industrial Internet since 2018 with a special focus on the shipbuilding industry,2 and more recently, the fused application of the Industrial Internet in the shipbuilding industry.

Although the reference guide does not explicitly frame the initiative as Military-Civil Fusion, the implications are clear. The term “fused” in the guide’s title refers to “fused application of the Industrial Internet” rather than “Military-Civilian Fusion,” but the end result is the same. Fused application of the Industrial Internet is directed at building innovation and efficiency across the entire shipbuilding supply chain, specifically in areas such as digitalized research, development, and design; supply chain management; product quality monitoring; intelligent unmanned assembly; and multi-site collaborative manufacturing. The transformation is designed to address these gaps in a unified manner, across the defense and civilian sectors, as highlighted by the reference guide.

Participants: A Full Civilian-Defense Industrial Ecosystem

The Alliance of the Industrial Internet, under the guidance of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Information and Communication Management Bureau and the Manufacturing Industry No. 2 Department, has collaborated with various industry stakeholders to research and compile the Reference Guide for the Fused Application of the Industrial Internet in the Shipbuilding Industry. This Guide aims to provide a reference for requirement scenario identification, application model creation, critical system construction, and organizational implementation methodologies as the Industrial Internet is being fused with 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

The Reference Guide specifically notes that the entire shipbuilding industrial chain is included in the program, including the national defense industries. The lead organizations participating in the shipbuilding digitalization program (and contributors to the Reference Guide) include MIIT elements as well as a broad cross-section of both civilian and defense industry entities within the shipbuilding industry:

  • MIIT Information and Communication Management Bureau
  • MIIT Manufacturing Industry No. 2 Department
  • Industrial Internet Industry Alliance
  • MIIT China Academy of Information and Communications Technology
  • China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry
  • Chinese Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers
  • China Classification Society
  • China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC)
  • Jiangnan Shipyard
  • CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company
  • COSCO Shipping Heavy Industry Company
  • Wuhu Shipyard
  • CSSC 716 Research Institute
  • CSSC 11 Research Institute
  • CSSC Industrial Internet Company
  • Jiangsu Zhongtian Internet Technology Company
  • Zhendui Industry Artificial Intelligence Company

Footnotes

  1. While not exhaustive, the following English-language papers, listed chronologically, offer excellent background on the Industrial Internet in China. Notably, Jeff Pao is one of the few writers In English who have accurately linked the Industrial Internet to the Digital China strategy:

    Qiu Ping, “Progress in Developing the Industrial Internet in China,” Qiushi, June 09, 2025

    Nicholas Welch, “Manufacturing’s Missing Revolution: Lessons the techno-industrial competition with China,” ChinaTalk, March 03, 2025

    Liu Yanyan, “What Is the Industrial Internet?” Huawei Info-Finder, July 01, 2024

    Mary Hui, “China bets on industrial AI: Doing so sidesteps its US tech dependence and amplifies its manufacturing might,” a/symmetric, April 26, 2024

    John Lee, “China and the Industrial Internet of Things,” Leiden Asia Centre, June 23, 2023

    Jeff Pao, “Chinese industries to go digital or die ‘Digital China’ plan emphasizes ‘industrial internet’ in a state-led drive for world-class competitiveness and supply chain supremacy,” Asia Times, March 11, 2023

    Matt Sheehan, “Remaking “Made in China”: Beijing’s Industrial Internet Ambitions,” MacroPolo, February 22, 2021 ↩︎
  2. SASTIND is a State Council bureau administered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Industry (MIIT) at the deputy minister level. It is responsible for both managing the defense industries and facilitating military-civil fusion within the MIIT industrial framework. 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 matters 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。) ↩︎