China's Industrial Sectors Move Toward AI Agents as Experts Note Trust Concerns

China's industrial sectors are integrating artificial intelligence systems that can execute tasks independently, according to industry experts at the International Data Corporation CIO Summit in Shenzhen on Friday. The shift is supported by Beijing's "AI Plus" strategy, which sets adoption targets of over 70 percent by 2027 and more than 90 percent by 2030 across manufacturing, agriculture, and services.

Liu Xiangyang, chief information security officer of Midea Group, said upper-layer software will be replaced by agents that understand business logic and execute workflows. Du Yanze, senior research manager at IDC, said 90 percent of an AI agent's value will come from industrial expertise and that the core of the industrial AI value chain has shifted to industry knowledge.

Experts noted that large language models struggle in professional domains due to limited industrial data and knowledge during training.

Du gave an example in which AI agents could reduce the time to process a supply chain order from two hours to several minutes through automated data analysis, planning, risk recognition, and decision making. China's industrial software currently lags in advanced manufacturing, including electronic design automation software for semiconductors that remains dependent on foreign technology.

Critical vertical markets such as healthcare and aerospace were described as potentially too high-risk for autonomous agents.