China Telecommunications and General Electric Co.(GE) jointly announced on Tuesday their partnership to push forward the scheme of industrial Internet.
The U.S. multinational conglomerate will give its software platform Predix to let China Telecom build a data platform.
The said platform will help industries become connected, as mentioned in the presentation during GE’s "Minds and Machines" forum in Beijing on Tuesday.
Predix, which will integrate cloud-based platform and industrial companies, will cover different industries such as aviation, oil and gas, manufacturing and healthcare.
GE originated the term “industrial Internet” to refer to the integration of physical machinery with networked sensors and software.
"The ability to transform the information into better asset utilization, better fuel performance, and better safety for airlines or utilities or hospitals, that is the industrial Internet all about," said Jeffrey R. Immelt, GE's CEO, during the forum.
Immelt noted that the industrial Internet includes five aspects, saying that “while the Internet will help build a living network of the world's machines, data and people, software such as advanced sensors and controls will increase system intelligence.”
China Telecom, one of the country's three big telecom firms, disclosed a white paper on "Internet Plus."
The paper noted that the Internet and traditional industries are to be integrated through online platforms and technology.
Based on reports, the firm plans to invest 80 billion yuan ($12.9 billion) each year to establish an industrial circle for the strategy.
Yang Jie, executive director of China Telecom, said that embracing Internet technologies will help the company accelerate the construction of all optical fiber networks.
Xiang Ligang, a Beijing-based analyst specializing in telecommunications, said that the new cooperation between China Telecom and GE is seen as a step in carrying forward the country's "Made in China 2025" plan. The said plan is a strategy to upgrade the manufacturing sector by introducing advanced technologies such as big data and cloud computing.
"Building a giant network is a prerequisite for Internet-connected manufacturing, and China Telecom could play an important role in that," said Xiang.