Standing at the head of the development of the manufacturing industry, the integration of industrial software and hardware manufacturing is no longer a looming mast at the junction of the sea and sky, but a giant ship that has sailed to the front.

As an important part of the manufacturing industry in the intelligent era, industrial software provides strong support for the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and the intelligent development, and is also an indispensable basis for further digging the industrial development potential. China is the world’s largest industrial country, has built a relatively complete industrial chain system, but in the field of industrial software, there are still more prominent blind spots and shortcomings, to create a solid “digital cornerstone”, has been the needs of the industry, The Times.

The era calls for “Software self-improvement”

Multiple robotic arms work together to precisely sort and arrange nuts of different specifications from the raw material box and deliver them to the designated location, and the era of manual sorting has quietly passed. This visual sorting nut system is one of the products of Tianjin Zhuolang Information Technology Co., LTD.

“Through the uploading and sharing of real-time production data, production line flexibility and quality control capabilities have been greatly improved.” Company general manager Zhang Kunyu said. With the blessing of industrial software, more and more traditional manufacturing enterprises have begun to put the self-transformation of the integration of data and reality on the agenda.

Known as the “soul” of industry and the “brain” of production, the multi-dimensional penetration of the whole process of industrial production makes the importance of industrial software self-evident. At the 25th China International Software Expo held in Tianjin, Gao Sumei, vice president and Secretary general of the China Electronic Information Industry Federation, said that industrial software, as the digital soul of modern industry, is crucial to promoting the development of the industrial Internet, and is also the basic and strategic driving force for promoting new industrialization.

According to the Research Report on the Development of China’s Industrial Software Industry in 2023 released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2022, China’s industrial software products will achieve revenue of 240.7 billion yuan, an increase of 14.3%, higher than the global growth rate. From 119.4 billion yuan in 2016 to 240.7 billion yuan in 2022, the compound annual growth rate of China’s industrial software product revenue reached 12.4%. In the first half of 2023, China’s industrial software product revenue was 124.7 billion yuan, an increase of 12.8%, and the growth rate remained at a high level, showing a good momentum of development.

The world’s largest industrial country needs to match its position in industrial software. In recent years, the worldwide industrial pattern has changed rapidly, in the new situation of industrial intelligence, green, integration and so on, industrial software is facing new opportunities and challenges, and accelerating the independent innovation of industrial software has become a strategic task to improve the core competitiveness of manufacturing industry, ensure the security of industrial supply chain, and support the high-quality development of industry.

Industry insiders generally believe that domestic industrial software does not exist “to self-improvement” problem, in front of the “how to self-improvement” and “when can achieve self-improvement” problem, and these problems are now more urgent.

China has a comprehensive range of industrial categories, high-level industrial equipment and in-depth industry-university-research cooperation mode, in the field of industrial software technology has a number of relatively mature enterprises and technical achievements. Experts believe that China’s industrial software is not to solve the problem of starting from scratch, but to solve the development problem of small and scattered, low level of productization and no formation of industrial ecology.

The “14th Five-Year Plan” for the Development of Software and information technology Service Industry pointed out that in order to achieve breakthroughs in the fields of software kernel and development framework, the short board weakness of the industrial chain should be solved, and the supply capacity of key software such as industrial software should be improved. “It has played a prominent role in driving the digital transformation of shipbuilding, electronics, machinery and other manufacturing industries.” “By 2025, the number of industrial apps will exceed 1 million, the advantages of longboard will continue to consolidate, and the resilience of industrial chain and supply chain will continue to improve.”

Based on this, Gao Sumei believes that the current development of China’s industrial software is standing at a new starting point, the future of China’s industrial software should not only serve the efficient production of enterprises, but also contribute to the comprehensive intelligent and sustainable development of the industry.