The New-gen Manufacturing Conference takes place at the Wuxi Taihu International Expo Center, East China's Jiangsu province from June 30 to July 1. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The New-gen Manufacturing Conference of Xuelang Town took place at the Wuxi Taihu International Expo Center, East China's Jiangsu province from June 30 to July 1.

The two-day conference focused on discussing how to better integrate the manufacturing sector with the internet of things (IoT).

The conference consisted of one main forum, 24 sub-forums themed on industrial internet, flexible manufacturing and enterprises' intelligent self-diagnosis, and an interactive exhibition of digitalized products for manufacturing held in an exhibition area of more than 10,000 square meters.

More than 500 manufacturing enterprises took part in the conference, including the leading textile company Jiangsu Sunshine Group and the energy solutions company Shuangliang Group, as well as over 100 experts, such as Wang Jian, founder of Alibaba Cloud and adviser for Xuelang Town.

All the attendees agreed that Xuelang Town was built to be an engine to promote digitalization, networking and intelligentialization of Wuxi's manufacturing sectors by integrating with the IoT and relying on Wuxi's advanced IoT foundation and manufacturing resources.

Li Xiaomin, Party secretary of Wuxi, said at the main forum that Xuelang Town is expected to promote the transformation of manufacturing enterprises by their combination with IoT.

Miao Wenbin, president of Shuangliang Group, thought that the separation of clients and data, and passive response, were shortcomings of current manufacturing. With IoT, data could be shared and service could be provided more effectively.

Wang Jian, founder of Alibaba Cloud and adviser for Xuelang Town, speaks at the New-gen Manufacturing Conference in Wuxi, Jiangsu province on June 30. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

"Xuelang Town is to promote digitalization of manufacturing enterprises and achieve advanced productivity to motivate more companies to make enterprise transformation in the digital era," Wang Jian said.

Covering an area of 35,000 square kilometers, Xuelang Town was co-established by the Wuxi municipal government and tech giant Alibaba Group in 2017 to accelerate the integration of IoT and manufacturing by combining investment capital, platforms and technologies and promoting mutual development.