China is concerned about the security risks as a result of the tremendous expansion of the connected devices in the era of Internet of Things (IoT), and plans to safeguard the IoT ecosystem of devices and services through strict laws and homegrown software and hardware.

By 2020, the IoT industry's market value is expected to exceed over 2,000 billion yuan, revealed Mao Zuokui, an official with the Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, at the High-level Forum on Information Security held on Sunday in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu province, a key hub of China's IoT businesses.

"The rising number of devices beyond smartphones and laptops means that the target pool is getting bigger for cyber attacks, which has implications for financial crimes and even terrorism. Information security vulnerability and risk assessments are crucial for China's information security," said Zhu Shengtao, director of China Information Technology Security Evaluation Center (CNITSEC).

According to Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, China's information security has great potential to become top-notch in the world, as the nation boasts a top-down focus on security with a large talent pool and a gigantic market that is both open and inclusive.

Cyber and information security companies have joined hands with industries that are new to IoT to guarantee safety: to stop a fast-moving car from being hijacked in the Internet of Vehicles, or to prevent smart home appliances from turning your life into a Truman Show, noted Zhang Cong, a vice president of 360 Enterprise Security Group.

Meanwhile, China plans to set up a risk report mechanism to boost the nation's emergency response capability, revealed Xie Shaofeng, an official on informatization and software services with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), at the forum.

He also stressed that annual information security checkups and risk prevention evaluations will be carried out to further beef up security systems.

Starting on June 1st 2017, China's Cybersecurity Law and a security review system on network products and services began to take effect, both of which set eyes on information technology at home and abroad to guarantee their provided services and products would not leave a backdoor open to hackers or deliberately break users' systems.

On the other hand, Ni pointed out that China's Linux operating system (OS) will be able to replace "Windows and Intel," one day, with three types of CPUs, including Loongson. Loongson is a family of general-purpose MIPS64 CPUs developed at the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in China.

Meanwhile, another competitor for the "Wintel" digital office system that was designed by China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp (CASIC) has been set up on 28,000 devices, serving 40,000 users.

On real-time operating system (RTOS), China has been developing domestic RTOS SylixOS since 2006, and the OS boasting full intellectual property rights is ready ripe to challenge American RTOS VxWorks, while CASIC's super-server boasts better performance at lower cost for server and database services.

While at the initial stage of the self-developed products and services, it is understandable to see a relatively lower market share, Wang Jun, chief engineer with CNITSEC, said in a statement with People's Daily. "No one OS can secure all tasks. We need to cultivate a full ecology where people and companies along with their applications and external devices can adapt to the OS," he said.

$15 billion investment plan in big data, cloud computing

In related news, China's state planner said on Wednesday it has reached an agreement with a major Chinese policy bank to invest 100 billion yuan ($14.60 billion) in big data, cloud computing and smart city projects over the next 5 years.