China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveils plan to transform software with AI by 2030

Summary

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published the 'AI + Software' special action plan in September 2026. According to the plan, all critical software will be fully intelligentized by 2030. The 2028 targets include 20,000 enterprise deployments, 100 agent-software benchmarks, and more than five open-source projects.

Why it matters

This is a top-down industrial policy that explicitly targets the entire software stack — from industrial tools like CAD/CAE/EDA to consumer-facing agent software — as a new national growth engine. The plan also reveals a strategic move toward building local agent-software ecosystems (app stores, skill libraries, high-quality datasets) capable of competing with Western platforms. For those tracking China's AI strategy, this signals that software has become a primary policy lever, not just hardware.

Highlights

• 2028 targets: covering over 20,000 enterprises, 100 technology transformation projects, 100 agent benchmarks, and more than five open-source projects
• Explicit AI integration into CAD, CAE, and EDA — the core of China's industrial software gap
• Mandatory creation of agent-software app stores, skill source libraries, and sector-level high-quality datasets

Critical take

The plan reads like a quota-based compliance checklist, citing targets such as '100 benchmarks' and '20,000 enterprises.' This model, common in Chinese industrial policy, typically leads to state-subsidized adoption rather than organic innovation. Notably absent are measurable KPIs for 'full intelligentization,' intellectual property or data governance measures, and a clear mechanism to evaluate whether agent-software deployments actually outperform legacy workflows. Consequently, the 2030 goal carries the weight of a political message rather than a technically rigorous roadmap.