____2.thumb_head
Photo/VCG
Nov. 23 (NBD) – Alibaba Cloud announced Thursday the launch of an industrial internet platform at The Computing Conference in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province. 
The three-tier structure of the industrial internet platform consists of industry-related IoT (Internet of Things) and ET Brain, as well as vertical applications related to a large variety of industries including semiconductors, petrochemicals, steel and metals, 3D printing, and energies.
Apart from Guangdong Province, Alibaba Cloud also set up industrial internet platforms in Zhejiang Province and Chongqing.
According to the concept of new manufacturing coined by Jack Ma, co-founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA), industrial internet platforms help Alibaba connect the data flow between the supply chain and production and marketing links and transfer the information directly to manufacturers for production, so as to stimulate the further development of the conglomerate's e-commerce business.
In recent years, the industrial internet segment, which is a key infrastructure for smart manufacturing, has shown a booming trend in China. Other tech titans like Tencent and Huawei also launched their industrial internet platforms.
Compared with European and North American countries, the industrial internet industry in China still faces barriers for its further development since there is a lack of talents that have a good understanding of both the industry and technologies.
Hu Xiaoming, president of Alibaba Cloud, stated differences also existed in IT environment between China and European and North American countries.
But Hu pointed out China enjoys its own advantages as well. 
The country has a large number of ISVs (Independent Software Vendors), he said. Cloud services infrastructure providers like Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud are able to gather ISVs from various industries through PaaS (Platform as a Service) platforms to serve more manufacturing firms. 
Meanwhile, China's e-commerce and internet industry is highly developed. According to Hu Xiaoming, Chinese firms can make the most of its advantage to curb the costs, bring innovations and improve the efficiency through smart manufacturing. And more importantly, Chinese companies can advance the development of the C2B (customer to business) model via digital transformation, he added.
Hu Xiaoming is quite optimistic about the future of China's industrial internet and smart manufacturing sector. Chinese consumers now become internet users and this will promote the industrial, urban and economic growth, he explained.
Moreover, according to the insiders, China now has an opportunity of overtaking European and North American countries in the cloud computing industry, which will also drive the development of the smart manufacturing industry in China.

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn
Editor: Wen Qiao