IoT and AI in Public Utilities (Water, Electricity, and Gas) Are Evolving from “Single-Point Monitoring” to “Full-Domain Intelligence”

At the 2026 World IoT Expo, a consensus was once again consolidated: the Internet of Things is accelerating from ubiquitous connectivity toward a new stage—the Intelligent Connectivity of Everything—integrating sensing, assessment, and autonomous decision-making. To see how the IoT will develop, look to China, to Jiangsu, and to Wuxi—the 2026 World IoT Expo was held in Wuxi from October 30 to November 2.

China: a vast main front for the Intelligent Connectivity of Everything. China currently leads the world in the scale of its 5G base stations and gigabit network infrastructure. The industrial internet covers all 41 major industrial categories, with thousands of 5G factories and more than 20,000 industrial private networks in operation, and hundreds of benchmark cases being replicated across industries. Under the Action Plan for Promoting the Innovative Development of the IoT Industry (2026–2028), the number of IoT terminal connections is targeted to reach on the order of ten billion by 2028, with the core industry scale exceeding RMB 3.5 trillion. A vast market, massive terminals, and continuously evolving AI and embodied intelligence technologies are together creating strong momentum for the IoT industry.

Jiangsu: a region of full-domain expansion for the Intelligent Connectivity of Everything. The province’s IoT terminal connections have exceeded 386 million, providing abundant data to support the Intelligent Connectivity of Everything. Jiangsu is currently implementing an action plan for the innovative development of the IoT industry—accelerating technological innovation, strengthening the connectivity foundation, deepening scenario-based empowerment, and building an open ecosystem. It continues to promote the deep integration of IoT, AI, 6G, and other new technologies with manufacturing. Any industry seeking ubiquitous integration can find space for implementation and free development in Jiangsu; any experiment can find a suitable application environment there. Jiangsu has the best conditions and the most space for promoting the integration of the IoT with the real economy, and its prospects are full of imagination and promise.

Wuxi: a source and host for the Intelligent Connectivity of Everything. Building on years of accumulated development, Wuxi has established an industrial foundation suited to the Intelligent Connectivity of Everything. At the sensing layer, as the country’s only National Sensor Network Innovation Demonstration Zone, Wuxi’s intelligent sensor industry has formed a full industrial chain covering R&D, design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, module systems, and software algorithms. At the computing-power layer, the city’s total intelligent computing capacity has reached 15,619 PFLOPS, and it hosts 44 industry-specific models, including the Longshine Jiugong energy large model. Wuxi’s Urban Intelligent Computing Cloud Platform has been selected as a national pilot. At the scenario layer, Wuxi has eight industrial clusters each exceeding RMB 200 billion, providing massive real-world scenarios for technology validation.

IoT and AI in public utilities—water, electricity, and gas—are likewise evolving from “single-point monitoring” to “full-domain intelligence.” The latest developments are concentrated in digital twin base-map construction, AI acoustic/spectral precise leak detection, collaborative inspection by drones and robots, and a shift from “reactive repair” to “pre-emptive warning.”

Water Utilities: From the “Listening Rod” to “AI Acoustics + Digital Twins”

Traditional leakage control in water supply networks relied heavily on manual listening. Today, AI acoustic recognition and pressure prediction models have become mainstream.

AI acoustic leak detection systems. Taiwan Water Corporation recently introduced an “AI Acoustic Underground Leak Detection System” that combines AI audio recognition with IoT positioning. The system precisely locates leaks through real-time acoustic sensing. In 2025, it validated 1,607 leak points, significantly reducing road excavation costs and manual leak-detection requirements.

AI pressure prediction and refined pressure control. Yongkang, Zhejiang, introduced a Transformer neural network model that integrates water consumption, meteorological, and holiday data to build a 24-hour pipe-network pressure prediction algorithm with an accuracy rate exceeding 92%. Based on this, the system refined treated-water pressure into 12 time-period regulation segments, reducing the non-revenue water (NRW) rate from 21.95% to 11%.

HarmonyOS-enabled smart water plants. Shenzhen Wuzhila Water Plant completed a HarmonyOS-based upgrade and deployed eight types of embodied intelligent robots, covering inspection, cleaning, and other tasks. With HarmonyOS “FlashLink” technology, O&M personnel can obtain parameters within seconds simply by approaching equipment. Digital twin applications have also expanded from expensive central-control screens to ordinary mobile phones, enabling lightweight collaboration.

Gas Utilities: AI Visual Recognition and Space-Air-Ground Integrated Inspection

Gas safety is a top priority for urban lifelines. Current developments focus on using AI to compensate for gaps in manual experience and on using drones and robot dogs to eliminate inspection blind spots in complex terrain.

AI-assisted residential safety inspections and construction supervision. Xuzhou has introduced AI-powered intelligent review of work orders in gas safety management. The system includes 19 automatic detection functions, such as pipe corrosion and hose aging, and reviews more than 20,000 photos per day on average, unifying judgment standards that previously depended on individual inspectors’ sense of responsibility. At construction sites, a 5G+AI platform can identify unauthorized hot work, improperly placed equipment, and other violations within seconds.

High-altitude methane detection by drone. For high-pressure pipelines buried in hilly areas, Hangzhou Gas has deployed 27 drone docking stations. Drones not only conduct daily patrols to guard against third-party construction such as excavator operations, but also perform special monthly flight missions, capturing ppm-level methane concentrations at an altitude of 300 meters—solving problems that manual patrols cannot see or reach.

Enterprise-scale AI deployment. China Gas has integrated AI into core business processes. For example, it uses self-developed industry small models for indoor hazard image recognition and distills the management experience of outstanding safety inspectors into standardized capabilities through AI, seeking to address missed inspections caused by differences in inspector capability.

Electric Power: Digital Twins and a “Pre-emptive Prevention” System

AI applications in the power sector are shifting from equipment monitoring to autonomous assessment of grid faults and proactive repair.

Proactive repair “super work orders.” State Grid Shanghai Electric Power launched this system during power-supply guarantee for the China International Import Expo. AI can autonomously assess the scope of fault impact and automatically dispatch repair work orders, striving to put repair personnel on the road before users report a fault—realizing a mechanism shift from “receiving repair reports” to “proactive repair.”

User-side intelligent inspection to prevent spillover. For high-voltage industrial user-side equipment—previously an inspection blind spot—Nantong Haimen Power Supply has deployed intelligent sensing terminals. Through 24-hour monitoring of abnormal temperature rise and operating-condition changes, it provides early warning of equipment aging hazards and prevents internal user faults from back-feeding into the public grid. Estimates show that this measure can reduce the line fault tripping rate by more than 50%.

AR+AI glasses and robot dog collaboration. During power-supply guarantee for the World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit, inspection personnel wore AR glasses integrated with AI image recognition and voice interaction, with on-screen guidance for item-by-item checks. Robot dogs replaced humans in entering high-voltage areas for infrared temperature measurement, forming a human-machine collaborative, three-dimensional power-supply guarantee network.

Public utilities—water, electricity, and gas—are no longer the preliminary stage of “installing meters and transmitting data.” They are moving deep into the replacement and enhancement of core business logic: AI is beginning to replace the eyes of veteran safety inspectors and the ears of veteran leak listeners, and even to replace dispatchers in preliminary fault assessment and work-order dispatch.

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