On January 18, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Industrial Internet Network Construction and Promotion Guide", proposing to form a relatively complete top-level design of the industrial Internet network by 2020, and initially build the industrial Internet infrastructure and technology industrial system.
On January 18, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Industrial Internet Network Construction and Promotion Guide", proposing to form a relatively complete top-level design of the industrial Internet network by 2020, and initially build the industrial Internet infrastructure and technology industrial system.
This indicates that the industrial Internet, which is on the rise in 2018, will remain one of the most concerned areas this year.
When it comes to the industrial Internet, it is difficult to bypass the old industrial giant General Electric (GE). It took the lead in proposing the concept of industrial Internet in 2012, launched the world's first industrial Internet platform product Predix in 2013, established a new division for Digital transformation in 2015, and proposed that GE's sales in the digital software field would reach 10 billion US dollars in 2020.
Predix, which aims to bring together data from all parts of the industrial process and build a unified data system, has started by building four cloud computing centers around the world to monitor and analyze data from 10 million sensors around the world every day. But as GE's financial woes deepened, the summer of 2018 began to bring about the sale of Predix and its digital division as a whole. In December, GE announced it would spin off its GE Digital division, which includes Predix.
"What we've learned over the past few years is that it's expensive to build a common data platform efficiently," Colin Parris, GE's global vice president, told reporters at the EmTechChina 2019 Global Emerging Technology Summit.
As GE's vice president of software development, Colin Parris has led GE's digital drive for the past four and a half years. In an interview with 21st Century Business Herald, he said the new company, with an initial investment of $1.2 billion, will be more focused, providing software services for asset-intensive industries based on its existing industrial customer base.
"Operating as an independent entity could be good for both the division and GE, and Predix has an opportunity to more centrally deliver value to the industry." A senior researcher at Microsoft said. He believes that the industrial Internet is currently in its early stages, and although GE's journey is not smooth, it still has a clear lead.
The following is the full text of the interview:
"21st Century" : Whether it is Internet giants or industrial enterprises, China is actively promoting the development of industrial Internet. As the first industrial Internet platform, what is the architecture of Predix?
Colin Parris: At its core, the system we built has two main parts: one is how to integrate the data, because it is very challenging to integrate and collect data in an industrial system; The second is how to output information.
Over the last decade, we've found that it's very expensive to run this system efficiently, so we've worked with partners like Azure or Amazon to help us design the underlying architecture, and we do the upper level, the industrial quantification. So the Predix platform that you see today is based on an underlying architecture designed by Azure or Amazon to collect relevant industrialization data.
"21st Century" : Before building this platform, GE has deep experience in aerospace and other industries. What do you think is the basis for building the industrial Internet? What value does this new service bring?
Colin Parris: GE did have a lot of traditional industry platforms, but they were mainly focused on the detection and diagnosis of specialized equipment, which had worked well in the past, but they were older platforms.
In other words, if you want to use artificial intelligence on these platforms, you need to program in some older languages, such as C++ and so on. If Predix can help us collect data faster, and if we add artificial intelligence to the platform, we can program in newer languages like python or tensorflow.
The mobile side can also be further improved by Predix, and some new platforms, such as Azure and Microsoft, are doing a good job of cybersecurity. I'm not saying that the previous system security was expensive, or not secure, but that the cost of service is constantly falling as new platforms emerge. Instead of updating the old platform to a new platform, it is better to directly build a new platform, which can greatly reduce costs.
21st Century: We've seen some changes and adjustments along the Predix journey, including the suspension of the project and, more recently, its sale and return to independence. At present, many institutions around the world are trying to do this, as a pioneer, GE has what experience and lessons?
Colin Parris: For industry, one of the most important steps in the transformation of digital and artificial intelligence is the transformation of processes. In the past, we had some very sophisticated technologies that could not generate value if they were not implemented and used. These technologies must be truly embedded in the workflow in order to better improve efficiency.
We collect a lot of data from manufacturing and service systems, and embedding AI in systems can make them work more efficiently and cost-effectively, but we also need professionals, and training is an important part of that.
That's why process transformation is so important, and we need to better integrate AI into this process to help solve relevant problems.
Finally, I believe that in the future, IT may be necessary to change some management organizational structures within the company and the industry, and even change the incentive measures for personnel and change the entire IT workflow, which can be changed in the ICP system.
21st Century: How is Predix being used commercially so far?
Colin Parris: Four months ago, Predix had 1,500 users, regular users of the platform. Of course, more users will do some platform testing from time to time, and all users will use the platform to achieve profits for them.
21st Century: We know that pricing for the industrial Internet has been a challenge because there are multiple products at different levels. What is the current pricing mechanism for Predix?
Colin Parris: The pricing approach is actually quite complex, we are mainly results-oriented pricing, for example, some companies will directly independent a cloud platform, based on that pricing. Our overall pricing approach is primarily results-oriented.
"21st Century" : Siemens' Mindsphere has announced a partnership with Alibaba Cloud to enter the Chinese market, what is the layout of Predix or GE in China?
Colin Parris: The company was founded last December, just a month ago, so I don't know if it will invest more in China in the future, it's not clear yet. We will wait and see if a strategy is announced in March.
