GE's industrial Internet ready for take off

US-based General Electric Co plans to establish a software center that is expected to add software and analytical capabilities to GE China's current research and development and innovation centers in Shanghai, Chengdu and Xi'an. [Photo / Agencies]

General Electric Co has plans to promote an industrial Internet network that would create about $3 trillion in accumulated growth opportunities for Chinese companies by 2030, a top executive said on Monday.

The Fairfield-based company has revealed its industrial Internet strategy, and said it plans to establish a software center to help Chinese companies develop more efficient, productive and sustainable operations.

The center is expected to add software and analytical capabilities to GE China's current research and development and innovation centers in Shanghai, Chengdu and Xi'an.

The industrial Internet is a global network that combines advanced machines with key software, sensors and analytical technology.

Instead of relying on people-to-people communication through social media websites such as Facebook, the network allows machines to be connected to other machines, and machines to people, as well as machines to business operations on the Web.

"One of the things GE is positioned to do is to show how the combination of big industry machines and the evolution around sensors and software and analytics can play a role in the future," said GE chairman and chief executive officer Jeff Immelt on the forum Industrial Internet: Minds + Machines, which was held in Beijing on Monday. "We see this as the next revolution."

He said the difference between the industrial Internet and previous revolutions is that the industrial Internet is customer-based. The combination of materials and analytics will drive outcomes and deliver productivity.

Wang Jianzhou, former chairman of China Mobile, said on the forum that the communication between humans and machines is a natural extension of human-to-human interaction, only improved by the Internet. He said that advanced technology will play a vital part in reviving the economy.