Chinese firms embrace the Internet of Things
Source: Suwatchai Songwanich
When China's latest five-year plan was outlined in October, the Internet of Things featured prominently as a means to more efficiently link infrastructure and manufacturing as well as to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation.
The IoT, or what many Chinese call "Internet+", has the ability to unite the physical world of objects and the virtual one of computing and analytics through multiple networks, using technology that allows devices to communicate via infrared sensors, radio frequency identification and other machine-to-machine technologies.
Smartphones will become the universal remote control for managing many things in our lives.
China is at the forefront of this change, which may surprise some given Beijing's curbs on Internet freedoms. However, the country's huge Internet user base and its strength in both hardware and software give it a big advantage.
In 2010, a national IoT centre was established in Shanghai. In 2012, Beijing identified eight industries in which it would promote IoT with pilot projects. And in 2013, the Housing and Rural Development Ministry chose 193 local government and economic development zones as official smart city pilot project sites.
Government funds of more than US$24 billion (Bt862 billion) have since been made available, according to research firm IDC.
Zhongguanchun, an area in the northwestern part of Beijing and home to over 12,000 hi-tech firms, including many well-known IT players such as Lenovo and Xiaomi, is often referred to as China's Silicon Valley.
China's private sector has moved quickly to capitalise on this trend. In March, telecom vendor Huawei rolled out IoT technologies providing cloud services to business, bus and train connectivity, and remote management of energy use.
It also launched an open-source IoT technology platform, available free-of-charge to developers, which connects devices such as wearables, smart homeware and smart cars to the IoT.
Smartphone maker Xiaomi this year acquired more than 20 tech start-ups and launched home-use products such as blood-pressure monitors, air filters, security cameras, scales, power strips and light bulbs.
I recently met with Chinese companies that are embracing the IoT, moving from manufacturing hardware to developing software. Their focus is on "smart living", starting with connecting basic household appliances such as lights, air-cons, CCTVs, smoke detectors and motion sensors on a single platform for control and monitoring purposes, perhaps with the ability to turn them on and off using a mobile phone.
Management consulting company Accenture estimates that, based on current policy and investment trends, the IoT could add about $500 billion to China's GDP from now to 2030, although it cautions that potential gains are at risk due to challenges with infrastructure, the data policy and talent availability.
An estimated 25 billion devices make up the IoT, and this is expected to double in five years, meaning there will be six times as many devices as people connected to the Internet. There's a very good chance China will be the country not only with the most people connected but also with the most devices.
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