By Li Hongmei

China aims to establish industry giants that will focus on the Internet of Things with their core technologies and patents, the State Council said yesterday.

"We should push the development of IOT on application and research and establish a strong industry chain by 2015," Vice Premier Ma Kai said during a nationally broadcast IOT conference. "It represents the new economic wave and technology revolution."

China faces problems in developing its IOT, including a lack of industry giants like Google Inc and Apple Inc and core technologies on chip and smart sensors, industry insiders said. Microsoft Corp, Google, Apple and Amazon Inc have invested heavily in IOT. In January, Google said it would invest US$3.2 billion to acquire Nest, the connected devices company best known for making a smart home thermostat.

The IOT refers to a system of sensors, chips and networks that come together to revolutionize homes and businesses. IOT is expected to create more business value than that of Internet.

The revenue of IOT in China was 500 billion yuan (US$82.4 billion) in 2013, up 37 percent year on year, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In Shanghai, the IOT revenue hit 100 billion yuan.