The national IoT cluster in Wuxi. [Photo/Wuxi Daily]

The IoT industry has developed into the largest industrial cluster in Wuxi, East China's Jiangsu province, local media reported.

Last year, the operating revenue of the core IoT industry in the city totaled 93.45 billion yuan ($12.80 billion), up 16.2 percent year-on-year and accounting for nearly 50 percent of the provincial total.

The IoT industrial cluster in Wuxi has formed a complete industrial chain covering chips, sensing, connection, platform, application and safety, which has led to the emergence of a group of leading IoT businesses including Envision Energy and Longshine Technology.

WEIFU Group's workshop. [Photo/Wuxi Daily]

IoT technologies have boosted the upgrading and transformation of the manufacturing industry in the city.

At WEIFU Group's 5G innovation laboratory, robot arms are automatically assembling parts, delivery robots are transporting materials and information about the equipment's power and operations is displayed on screens in real time.

Xue Liang, general manager assistant at WEIFU, noted, "The 5G lab was put into operation in 2021 and has improved the company's production efficiency by 46 percent."

Driverless shuttle buses in Wuxi. [Photo/Wuxi Daily]

IoT technologies have also made Wuxi smarter.

In March, the first intelligent connected vehicles started operating in the Wuxi Economic Development District and China's largest driverless microcirculation shuttle bus system has taken shape in the city.

To date, the driverless shuttle buses have carried 25,000 people over more than 1.5 million kilometers and intelligent driving has been applied to logistics and urban cleaning for the past six months.