Industrial technology software needs to go out of the "no man's land"

“To promote the development of the industrial Internet, we must create a good ecological environment, actively build industrial Internet platforms, increase investment in industrial APP development, and focus on the development of industrial APPs that are based on machine equipment parameters, combined with industrial scenarios, and can solve the actual pain points of enterprises." , In the “Gen Yun Cup” launched in Changsha, China’s first industrial APP Million Grand Prix, said Ni Guangnan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Industrial APP specifically refers to software applied in the industrial field. It is also the "software" of industrial technology, which "hardens" the process of industrialization, process experience, manufacturing knowledge, and methods with explicit, digital, and systematic processes. In this way, there is no need to worry about core technologies and processes in the industry, and “lost” as the core technicians retire and lose.

In China, "industrial APP" is a new term. However, in the industrial fields of developed countries, such APPs have already gathered core competitiveness. Taking Boeing as an example, the company's new model development process involves tens of thousands of software, of which more than 7,000 industrial software are the "unique secrets" that precipitated the company's core technology.

The data predicts that by 2020 the global industrial APP market will exceed US$225 billion. The global market for CNC machine tools is approximately US$230 billion. This is equivalent to recreating a global CNC machine tool market. What is not commensurate with this is that China's industrial APP market is not even a "Blue Ocean", and it is almost a "no man's land."

“We must concentrate our efforts on solving the problems of core technology innovation in software and information technology services, and weak ecological construction capabilities.” Not long ago, at the National Informatization and Software Service Industry Seminar held in Nanning, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Deputy Minister Chen Xiongxiong said.

Xia Gang, Chief Engineer of the Institute of Information Security of China, explained to the reporter of Science and Technology Daily that there are three categories of industrial APP according to their purpose: the first category is the basic generic application such as CAD design software; the second category is the generic APP such as electromagnetic simulation. These two categories are "for sale"; the third category "corporate proprietary APP", such as Boeing and Dassault, has tens of thousands of unique secrets that are not for sale or high-priced luxury goods.

“We not only need to develop basic commonalities and industry-wide APP, but also must strongly support research and development of secretive industrial software. Independent industrial APP R&D, on the one hand, can promote the lifting of foreign bans on us, and luxury goods can be significantly reduced in price, which is conducive to the introduction of foreign advanced industries. Technology, helping China to get rid of the passive in the national trade war; on the other hand, the application of independent industrial APP in the manufacturing industry is of great strategic significance in protecting China's manufacturing intellectual property and advancing China's manufacturing 2025.” Xia Gang said.

Cultivating the industrial Internet ecosystem is also expected to spawn China's industrial software giant. Xia Gang said that the industrial Internet is an open and symbiotic ecosystem and independent research and development does not mean that it is closed. Industrial Internet can integrate domestic and foreign industrial technology resources to achieve the demand for industrial APP traction, collaborative development, marketing, and technical services. Once the independent industrial software has achieved breakthroughs in marketization and scale, it will promote the merger and reorganization of industrial software companies. "At that time, it is entirely possible for China to produce industrial software giants such as ANSYS and ESI."

“Lessons left in the field of chips and operating systems in our country include the lack of ecology. This warns of the development of industrial software. We must actively cultivate its upstream and downstream ecosystems and do a good job of the user experience. Only products that make similar software outside the US We can put China's independent industrial software into the manufacturing industry."

"Organizing competitions is to focus on ecological cultivation. To make more companies realize that they can participate in industrial APP production just like mobile APPs," said He Dongdong, CEO of the "Genyun Cup" contest organizer and Shugen Interconnection.