What changes
According to a report by IT之家 citing CCTV, the technical committee for industrial software standardization—established last October with its secretariat at the Fifth Institute of Electronics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology—is accelerating the creation of a working group on industrial operating system standards. In parallel, the source reports, work is proceeding on defining key standards and verifying their application, with the stated goal of supporting the large-scale adoption of these systems.
The new element is therefore organizational: no product or spending plan is being announced, but rather the launch of a standardization process. Its significance lies in the fact that standards can affect interoperability among plants, data and software components—a step the source explicitly links to the transition from experimentation on individual projects to the supply of products in systemic form.
Industry perspective
The 2026 report on industrial operating system technology and practices, published by the China Center for Information Industry Development and cited in the article, describes an evolution toward industrial-grade, specialized, integrated and intelligent systems. In the source's account, these systems form the foundation linking machinery, data and artificial intelligence in manufacturing.
ZhAI Yanfen, deputy director of the China Software Testing Center, explains that the development model is shifting from the individual project to an architecture in which a common base and sector-specific capabilities grow together: foundational software providers make shared functions available, industrial operators turn process knowledge, production rules and specialized tools into reusable components, while end users move from being mere clients to co-builders and verifiers. These are reported statements, not measured data.
Objectives and context figures
The ministry intends to accelerate the intelligent upgrading of industrial operating systems and other core software, promoting the use of industrial intelligent agents. The "AI + software" action plan, cited by the source without indicating its author or publication date, sets for 2028 targets of deployment at 20,000 software companies above a certain size threshold, the completion of one hundred intelligent technological renewal projects, and the creation of more than one hundred demonstrative smart factories.
On the adoption front, the article states that industrial operating systems are already used in key manufacturing sectors such as petrochemicals, chemicals, steel and nonferrous metals. In the first three quarters of the year, revenue in China's software sector reached 11,803.1 billion yuan, up 8.4% year on year, with revenue from industrial software products rising 7.3%. The source also cites an IDC forecast according to which spending by Chinese industrial enterprises on artificial intelligence will reach 280 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 52% between 2025 and 2030.
What remains to be verified
The material does not clarify the composition, establishment timeline or operational mandate of the working group, nor does it indicate which standards will be adopted first or how binding they will be. It does not specify whether the "AI + software" plan is already in force or the exact scope of the companies involved. Data are also missing on the market share of Chinese industrial operating systems relative to foreign suppliers and on the possible impact of the standards in preparation on non-Chinese operators.
