Since GE came up with the concept of the “industrial Internet” and launched its PREDIX platform, the “industrial Internet” has quickly become a prominent science. A variety of products, platforms, books, papers, conferences, and organizations on the “industrial Internet” have sprung up. Traditional industrial practitioners hope that the industrial Internet can make industrial production and services more efficient and improve their competitiveness. Internet hardware and software vendors are seeing new customers and market growth. Perhaps the rapid development of the Internet and the effect of creating wealth are too impressive, and all of a sudden people are gearing up to make a big play in this new field.

AX400 Ideal is very plump, reality is very bony. The development of the “industrial Internet” is not smooth sailing. GE Digital’s PREDIX platform has not fared well, and there was talk of a breakup and sale. Recent market rumors that Ali Cloud took the initiative to divest industrial-related businesses. Some “industrial Internet” platforms hit the IPO failed, their business logic and revenue status can not achieve the ambitious financing film. Germany’s Industry 4.0 can not prevent the German industrial output value, especially the energy chemical output value, from shrinking significantly.

AX400 What’s the world coming to? It is not said that the “industrial Internet” can reshape the industrial technology system, production and service system, trigger industrial production changes, promote economic development quality changes, efficiency changes, power changes, and achieve high-quality economic development. In reality, none of this seems to be happening, and industrial production remains what it is.

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AX400 Let’s take a quick look at why this is happening. In the book “Industrial Internet – Breaking the Boundary between Intelligence and Machines”, GE puts forward three elements of the “Industrial Internet” : intelligent devices, intelligent systems and intelligent decision-making. The combination of these three elements and industrial production will unleash the potential of the Internet to help industrial production achieve benefits such as increasing productivity, reducing production costs, reducing waste emissions and improving equipment utilization.

AX400 Smart devices are industrial equipment with more sensors, instruments and meters. Smart devices can generate more operating data and upload the device operating data through the network. A large amount of equipment operation data can be provided to big data analysis software for data storage, analysis and visualization, and the analysis results are provided to decision-makers.

Intelligent systems include intelligent devices, instrumentation, and software deployed on the system network that are integrated through the network. An intelligent system composed of a large number of intelligent devices has a synergistic effect and can play a greater utility than a single intelligent device. The intelligent system effect is embodied in the aspects of network optimization, maintenance optimization, system recovery and networked learning.

AX400 Intelligent decision making occurs when smart devices and systems have collected enough data to enable data-driven learning. Intelligent decision making can transfer some equipment or device operation functions to intelligent digital systems. Intelligent decision making helps to solve the problem of increasingly complex equipment and device operation. For example, intelligent decision making can be used to automatically and flexibly schedule the production capacity of individual power generation units according to changes in wind, solar, thermal power plants and electricity demand.