China's centrally administered State-owned enterprises have made substantial progress in both industrial digitization and digital industrialization, boosting their roles in ramping up the country's digital economy development, experts said.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council recently emphasized the need to deeply implement the "AI+" special action among central SOEs. It urged enterprises to accelerate their digital and intelligent transformation based on their specific conditions, aiming to build a batch of emerging pillar industries.

Li Zhen, SASAC vice-chairman, said the commission will launch a new round of special transformative actions to this end.

"We will guide SOEs in the tiered cultivation of smart factories, strengthen independent innovation in digital technologies and deepen the integration of the digital economy with the real economy," Li said, adding that these efforts will drive the upgrade of traditional industries and accelerate the development of new quality productive forces.

With massive scale and diverse operational scenarios in key sectors, SOEs have become the core vehicles for moving artificial intelligence technologies from laboratories to industrial applications.

This aligns with a guideline on the "AI+" action issued by the State Council in August. The document set a target for 2027 to achieve deep integration of AI in six key areas, with the application penetration rate of new-generation smart terminals and agents exceeding 70 percent.

By 2030, AI is expected to comprehensively empower high-quality development with a 90 percent penetration rate, making the smart economy a major growth pole. By 2035, China aims to fully enter a new stage of smart economy and society, providing strong support for the basic realization of socialist modernization.

Against this backdrop, central SOEs are rapidly ramping up their infrastructure. In late April, China Mobile announced full operation of its Chengdu, Sichuan province hub node as a trusted data space for State-owned enterprises.

As one of the three major business hubs for this data space, the Chengdu site was closely aligned with the country's "East Data, West Computing" project. Equipped with 50,000 cores of general computing power and 1,675 PFLOPS of intelligent computing power, it provides stable and efficient support for data storage, intelligent analysis and AI model training for SOEs.

Similarly, CHN Energy is actively promoting the digital and intelligent upgrading of its industries by deepening cooperation with various market players, said a company executive.

Notable achievements include jointly developing rapid coal quality testing technology with Hikvision, deploying the "MineHarmony" operating system in its mines in collaboration with Huawei, and pioneering an unmanned coal mining model with industry partners.

The energy giant has also codeveloped a domestic building information modeling platform for the power sector, rolled out its self-developed iDCS system, and built the country's first 5G-powered smart power plant and cloud-based hydropower station.

Despite various challenges ahead, central SOEs are the most likely group to approach the 2027 target of a 70 percent application penetration rate for smart terminals and agents, said Li Jin, chief researcher at the China Enterprise Research Institute.

"To maintain this momentum, these State-owned giants must continue to break down data silos and foster open innovation ecosystems," he said, adding that increased investment in digital talent and robust cybersecurity frameworks will be crucial as these enterprises navigate the complexities of a fully integrated, AI-driven industrial landscape.

renqi@chinadaily.com.cn