On September 23, 2025, the China International Industry Fair opened in Shanghai. As Dawning Information Industry Co.,Ltd.'s industrial manifesto, subsidiary Sugon Networks introduced a new concept for the first time: "compute-control-security integration." According to the official explanation, this term aims to transform computing, control, and security from simple "technology stacking" to genuine "system collaboration." Collaboration implies human cooperation, and behind this concept lies a long-standing challenge.
For a factory to achieve intelligent automation, two types of engineers are indispensable. One type is IT engineers - formally trained programmers who use general-purpose languages like C/C++ to develop functional modules for systems. According to Chen Bingbing, Chief Engineer at Sugon Networks, this group believes in technology, with some even "enjoying showing off their skills," believing their value lies in "mastering all the deepest, most fundamental aspects of computers that others cannot handle."
The other type is OT engineers, or automation engineers, whose world differs completely from IT engineers. Their core tool is PLC - a control computer specifically designed for industrial sites. Their highest principle is stability and reliability, following rigorous "industrial logic." Regarding IT engineers' enthusiasm for "showing off skills," their evaluation is direct: "completely missing the point."
Chen Bingbing used an analogy: OT engineers are like assembly workers at an automotive assembly plant, responsible for assembling independent "functional modules" like engines, transmissions, and chassis into a car that can run on the road. Those modules are developed by professionals like IT engineers. The problem is that for many years, the "assembly plant" and "component factories" used two different sets of blueprints and spoke two different languages.
OT engineers use ST language and graphical tools for "assembly," while IT engineers use C/C++ to develop "components." The two sides cannot communicate directly, leading to low project integration efficiency. Chen Bingbing himself experienced this - due to tool and process barriers, "debugging a program could take months without success."
However, with artificial intelligence and big data becoming standard equipment in factories today, engineers from both worlds must collaborate. Sugon Networks' proposed "compute-control-security integration" ultimately aims to answer this question: When programmers meet engineers, how do we prevent them from "talking past each other"?
**Two Worlds, Two Languages**
For a factory to achieve intelligent automation, collaboration between two types of engineers is unavoidable, but in the past, they belonged to separate worlds. This is not simply a matter of departmental division, but a chasm shaped by technical paths, industry habits, and thinking patterns. To understand why "integration" is needed today, we must first understand where yesterday's "division" came from.
The "divergence" between the two types of engineers stems from the underlying logic of their respective tools. The PLC used by OT engineers - Programmable Logic Controller - can be understood as an extremely "robust" industrial computer specifically designed for factory production lines. Its core design philosophy is not freedom, but constraint.
Unlike C/C++ which gives programmers a blank canvas for free expression, PLC establishes "rules and regulations" for users from the beginning. It directly incorporates a set of proven, rigorous software engineering methods into its programming tools. For example, it extensively uses graphical programming languages. Engineers often aren't writing abstract lines of code, but dragging and connecting functional blocks representing specific industrial logic, like building with blocks.
This approach forces engineers to work within a safe framework that won't "make major mistakes." The result is that users don't need to be top programmers - as long as they understand industrial processes, they can "assemble" stable, reliable control programs according to PLC's preset specifications. In other words, safety and standardization are largely guaranteed by the tool itself, rather than completely relying on human experience.
Previously, the two sides stayed in their own lanes, but problems arose when factories needed to introduce AI, big data, and other new functions. These complex software modules must be written by IT engineers, but their work developed in C++ and other languages cannot be directly called or run by OT engineers' PLC platforms. The workflows of both sides are disconnected.
Chen Bingbing described an inefficient process common in high-end equipment development: research teams first use software called Matpower for algorithm simulation verification; after verification, they build a semi-physical simulation system for another round; after completing all this and feeling satisfied, they organize another team to rewrite all the code from scratch using C++ and other languages to finally form the product.
This process is not only time-consuming and labor-intensive, but also requires companies to simultaneously maintain several expensive talents who understand different software and languages. Most critically, each "rewrite" represents new risk. Without common blueprints or languages between the two worlds, they can only rely on manual "translation" and "transcription" repeatedly.
The chain of industrial intelligence gets stuck at the intersection of IT and OT. This isn't about who's right or wrong, but the inevitable sparks and resistance when two highly mature, logically consistent worlds are forcibly brought together by the demands of the times. For productivity to truly move forward, we first need a bridge that allows people from both worlds to stand together and communicate.
**Building Platforms, Creating Ecosystems**
The industrial intelligence chain is stuck at the IT-OT intersection. To advance productivity, a bridge is needed. At the Industrial Fair, Sugon Networks presented their solution - not a single product, but a comprehensive system consisting of a core concept, a series of new products, and two ecosystem initiatives.
The core concept of this solution is defined by Sugon Networks President Liu Li as "compute-control-security integration." In discussions with reporters, he explained that industrial security in the past was like "stringing candied fruit" - various devices simply connected in series, with boundary protection easily breached. The "compute-control-security integration" approach relies on Dawning Information Industry's powerful computing platform to integrate computing (compute), field control (control), and system security (security) capabilities to work collaboratively within one system, no longer speaking different languages.
To implement this concept, Sugon Networks released a series of new products at the Industrial Fair, addressing four key aspects of industrial digitalization.
First is the fully upgraded SugonRI industrial programming platform, directly targeting development scenarios and solving the "language" problem. Rather than forcing everyone to learn obscure ST language or allowing C++'s excessive freedom, the SugonRI platform maintains C++'s powerful capabilities while providing "rules and regulations" and modularization methods based on industrial logic. This essentially provides programmers accustomed to free expression with an industrial development manual they can use immediately without "making major mistakes," aiming to enable the vast programmer community to enter industrial programming with low barriers.
Second is the SUNA network traffic analysis platform, targeting network operations scenarios. Previously, factory network operations were like "blind people touching an elephant" - data location, traffic volume, and anomalies were all unclear. SUNA aims to provide "global visibility" using a "single diagram" system to completely display business data flows, making them visible, understandable, and operable for operations personnel.
Third is the industrial simulation integrated machine, specifically designed for high-performance industrial simulation and AI large model training scenarios, equipped with domestically-produced dual-processor architecture. This is a typical field requiring IT engineers to demonstrate their "skill-showing" capabilities, with Sugon providing a ready-to-use, computationally abundant, and autonomous hardware platform.
Fourth is the domestic industrial edge AI computing platform, targeting production sites and solving end-side intelligence and control integration. When production line cameras need AI for quality inspection, this equipment can immediately complete calculations and judgments on-site and transmit instructions to control equipment, achieving a closed loop from observation to thinking to action.
These four tools provide IT and OT engineers with collaborative handles in development, operations, simulation, and production respectively. As Chen Bingbing repeatedly emphasized in discussions, Sugon Networks' goal is to provide standardized "LEGO" building blocks, allowing engineers from different backgrounds to build what they want using familiar methods.
A natural question is: why can Dawning Information Industry Co.,Ltd., a company known for high-performance computing and intelligent computing, cross over into industrial software? Liu Li attributes this to the team's evolution. The company's DNA consists of exactly three components: "compute, control, security."
"Compute" is Dawning Information Industry's foundation for decades - from servers to supercomputers, the company has deep accumulation in AI computing and firmly follows the "domestic C86 route" technical path. This forms the computing base for the entire integration platform.
"Security" is Sugon Networks' origin. This Dawning Information Industry subsidiary was established in 2017 at Wuhan's National Cybersecurity Base, with one of its original core businesses being network traffic visualization analysis and cybersecurity products for major national projects. Security capability is embedded in the team's DNA.
"Control" was once the team's relatively weak area. Sugon Networks completed this puzzle piece by fully integrating Chen Bingbing and his team from the former South China Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who had worked in industrial control software for over a decade. This brought Sugon Networks the most valuable asset - a team that truly understands factory floors and speaks OT engineers' language.
This team composition spanning IT and OT is uncommon among China's major technology companies. Some within Dawning Information Industry evaluate that Sugon Networks has a bone-deep culture: "Whatever we do, we like to master the underlying technology, understand the underlying logic, or we feel uneasy."
Liu Li believes this IT-OT spanning team composition, combined with Dawning Information Industry's corporate culture of "mastering underlying technology," inevitably drives the company toward "integration."
Now with solutions in place and technical logic clear, a new platform's success depends on user adoption. For this, Sugon Networks designed two ecosystem promotion methods, targeting commercial partners and frontline engineers respectively.
The first method targets channel partners. Liu Li stated that Sugon Networks will rely on cooperative ecosystems to empower thousands of channel partners. At the Industrial Fair, the company announced new channel policies centered on "zero deposits, low thresholds, dynamic exit," aimed at attracting more small and medium-scale system integrators to jointly expand the market.
The second method targets actual users - engineers. Chen Bingbing summarized this as "2E (To Engineer)" thinking. Sugon Networks officially launched the SugonRI developer community, providing learning, communication, and case-sharing platforms for engineers wanting to learn and use the platform. This directly addresses the pain point of industrial engineers being "completely bewildered" when facing C++.
These two approaches - one focusing on commercial ecosystem breadth, the other on technical ecosystem depth - combined attempt to solve the two most common problems when promoting new platforms in industrial fields: distributors afraid to stock inventory, and engineers lacking teachers and guidance.
Liu Li emphasized that Sugon Networks' ecosystem mindset is open, aiming to "empower our partners rather than compete with them for business."
The four products and two ecosystem initiatives released at the Industrial Fair represent Sugon Networks' current action plan. However, linking these actions points toward Dawning Information Industry's longer-term goal: building "full-stack capabilities from chip design to computing services."
This means Dawning Information Industry is evolving from a hardware system and solution provider to an integrated company covering the entire "chip-edge-cloud-compute" industrial chain. The core approach is to eliminate barriers from underlying chips to upper-layer applications, achieving collaborative design and deep optimization of software and hardware to provide computing services with higher overall performance and efficiency.
Facing the IT-OT divide in industrial fields, Sugon Networks is no longer satisfied with building a bridge for "dialogue" between both sides, but aims to construct an entirely new "foundation." On this foundation, technical barriers will be minimized to the greatest extent, providing a more solid choice for China's autonomous industrial software ecosystem.
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