With the in-depth development of digital transformation in the manufacturing industry, real-time industrial operating systems play an increasingly prominent role in advancing modern manufacturing toward intelligence and efficiency. The successive issuance of policy documents such as the 14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Intelligent Manufacturing and the Action Plan for Digital Transformation of the Manufacturing Industry has brought China’s manufacturing digital transformation and intelligent manufacturing development into a new stage of comprehensive acceleration. Against this backdrop, the independent and controllable nature of industrial real-time operating systems has become more crucial than ever.

Nanjing Yihui Information Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yihui Info") is a high-tech enterprise in the industrial software field that adheres to independent R&D. It has long focused on developing industrial real-time operating systems (RTOS) with complete independent intellectual property rights, and is committed to providing customers with secure and intelligent embedded real-time operating systems, technical services, and integrated hardware-software solutions. From embarking on a fully independent R&D path to successfully developing and implementing SylixOS—the first domestically self-developed embedded real-time operating system—Yihui Info has, over its 18-year development journey, continuously led the domestic industrial real-time operating system industry toward independent controllability and advanced technology.

Founded in 2015, Yihui Info adopted a "dual headquarters" model (Beijing + Jiangsu) and established a subsidiary in Nanjing the following year. At the time of its establishment, the domestic industrial operating system field was still in its infancy, and foreign operating systems had long dominated the domestic market. In China’s industrial operating system sector, the difficulty of training talents for R&D teams and the lag in the construction of hardware and software ecosystems made fully independent forward R&D extremely challenging. However, Yihui Info directly positioned its development goals at the international highest standards and best levels, taking the path of fully independent R&D to build the SylixOS operating system from scratch. It was determined to break technical barriers with outstanding technical strength and create a new era for domestic large-scale real-time industrial operating systems.

A relevant person in charge of Yihui Info stated: "We found that for domestic factories, foreign operating systems or operating systems redeveloped based on foreign open-source systems are not suitable for many complex application scenarios. This is the main reason why Yihui Info chose to take a fully independent technical path from the very beginning."

However, independent R&D meant abandoning existing mature foreign operating systems that had been market-tested. The company would face enormous challenges not only in terms of technology but also in market promotion. The unfamiliarity and distrust of domestic operating systems among existing manufacturers led to repeated setbacks for Yihui Info in its early days. The company’s person in charge also said: "In the early days of Yihui’s establishment, domestic users still generally relied on foreign operating systems. Moreover, operating systems are highly dependent on the product ecosystem. Reversing users’ usage habits without the stimulation of an external environment was extremely difficult for the early Yihui. At that time, almost no one believed that a domestic company could independently develop a large-scale real-time industrial operating system." Later, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology led an evaluation of the independent rate of domestic operating system kernels. The results showed that the kernel independence rate of Yihui’s operating system was 100%, which gradually enabled Yihui to gain recognition in some high-reliability and high-security fields.

In the following years, Yihui Info successively achieved success in key national industries such as aerospace, as well as in national economic fields including electric power, industry, and transportation. Today, Yihui Info has made significant achievements in the industrialization of operating systems. Its independently developed SylixOS is the only large-scale embedded real-time operating system in China with complete independent intellectual property rights. It not only fills the gap in China’s industrial real-time operating system field but also wins wide recognition in the industry with its outstanding performance and wide range of application scenarios.

Nanjing, as an important base for Yihui Info’s R&D and promotion, has made indelible contributions to the company’s success. Based in Jiangsu’s developed manufacturing industry and abundant scientific, educational, and talent resources, Nanjing Yihui positions itself as a R&D-oriented headquarters, continuously providing industrial talents and research results to the company. A company representative said: "As a hub of the Yangtze River Delta’s major manufacturing regions and a national military industry hub, Nanjing naturally has fertile ground for nurturing high-quality industrial software enterprises, providing a solid foundation for Yihui Info’s growth and development. In addition, Nanjing also encourages various enterprises to aim at enhancing original innovation capabilities and supporting major technological breakthroughs, and strives to promote the clustered development of major scientific and technological infrastructure, creating a favorable business environment for the company’s settlement."

After foreseeing the development trend of manufacturing digital transformation, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group began to deeply deploy in the industrial software field. Focusing on addressing challenges such as key technological research in emerging industries, transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and incubation of high-tech enterprises, it took the lead in establishing multiple special funds, jointly building Nanjing’s "4 + N" industrial fund cluster, and guiding social capital to flow into the industrial software field. At the same time, for industrial software enterprises with development potential, Nanjing Innovation Investment Group not only fully plays its role in financial support but also provides comprehensive support and empowerment to enterprises in terms of resource integration, market expansion, and policy consultation, so as to support the high-quality development of domestic industrial software.

As a leading enterprise in the industrial software field, Yihui Info has continuously attracted attention from Nanjing Innovation Investment Group during its industry surveys. After in-depth understanding and communication, the Venture Capital Group completed an investment of over 100 million yuan in Yihui Info in July 2023 through the municipally managed Talent Fund Phase II under its trusteeship. Zhang Surong, General Manager of the Fourth Investment Department of the Venture Capital Group, said: "Yihui Info is a leading domestic embedded operating system service provider. In recent years, the enterprise has accumulated a group of high-quality and sticky customers with its excellent product strength. Its rich delivery experience and adaptation cases have built a strong moat for Yihui Info. In addition, Yihui Info’s commercial monetization model has been verified by the market, and its products have also gained high recognition in the industry."

Currently, Yihui Info has served more than 2,000 user units, established stable cooperative relationships with leading enterprises in multiple fields, and steadily increased its market share, becoming a well-deserved leader in China’s industrial operating system field.

The breakthrough from fully relying on foreign operating systems to having a domestic real-time industrial operating system with complete independent intellectual property rights was an extraordinary journey for Yihui Info from 0 to 1. Especially in an environment where domestic operating systems were generally not favored at that time, Yihui Info invested enormous efforts in market development in its early days. Every step—from initial doubts to subsequent trust—embodies the team’s unremitting efforts and technological innovation.

Mr. Han Hui, the founder of Yihui’s operating system, completed the writing of more than 2,000 lines of operating system code during his school years out of personal interest. This was the earliest prototype of Yihui’s SylixOS, which was continuously iterated and optimized in thousands of subsequent projects. For a startup like Yihui Info, it is extremely difficult to gain a foothold in the highly competitive market. To break this situation, the enterprise must continuously innovate in technology and use its excellent product strength to break the stereotype of domestic industrial operating systems. However, the process from scratch and then from good to excellent is long and requires repeated verification and improvement.

Yihui Info’s R&D team has continuously accumulated experience and optimized products in application development to lower the threshold for product use and enhance the user experience. A company representative said: "The key to the development of an operating system lies in its continuous use and improvement in real application scenarios. Only through ‘frequent use’ can it become ‘easy to use,’ and only when it is ‘easy to use’ will it be ‘commonly used.’" For many years, Yihui Info has been committed to providing customers with "easy-to-use, efficient, and leading" basic software solutions and services, freeing customers from the constraints of complex underlying technologies. Guided by this service concept, Yihui Info has successively developed operating systems and software architecture technologies such as EdgerOS, ECS real-time containers, container management platforms, and VSOA. These empower users to flexibly build mission-critical cloud-native architectures with fully independent technical systems based on the operating systems provided by Yihui Info according to their own needs, realizing DevSecOps functions with containerized deployment and automated management, which greatly enhances the user experience.

Industrial operating systems have a wide range of application scenarios and numerous segmented industries. For different industrial fields, Yihui Info assigns R&D teams dedicated to that field to conduct comprehensive deployment for different application scenarios. From the large-scale embedded real-time operating system SylixOS to the lightweight Internet of Things (IoT) operating system MS-ROTS, and then to the intelligent edge computing operating system EdgerOS, Yihui Info has continuously promoted qualitative changes in the technology ecosystem. The company has not only achieved full coverage of operating system technologies but also empowered multiple fields such as intelligent manufacturing, intelligent automobiles, and aviation and ships through the expansion of integrated hardware-software products and solutions. Yihui Info stated: "We are not afraid of competition and challenges. Competitive pressure is usually targeted at a single product or technology. Currently, Yihui provides comprehensive and systematic technologies, products, and overall solutions. In this field, Yihui Info is already an industry leader, and our goal is to become a global leader in operating systems and mission-critical cloud-native platforms."

After several years of development, Yihui Info has become a leader in this field in China. Its developed SylixOS has gradually transformed from an operating system with only basic functions to an industrial operating system with high performance and high reliability. By continuously breaking through and improving the real-time performance, security, and application performance of the system, Yihui Info has now achieved the replacement of foreign similar products in both functions and performance, truly realizing the transformation from a "follower" to a "runner alongside" foreign counterparts.

Facing the technical advantages of foreign enterprises, Yihui Info is oriented to market demand, adheres to the concept of innovation-driven development, and is committed to continuous breakthroughs in the depth and breadth of technology. Yihui Info said: "If a complete technology stack is Yihui Info’s moat, then innovation is the weapon that ensures we remain invincible in market competition." The company’s R&D team believes that only through independent innovation can it gain a firm foothold in this technological competition, thereby realizing domestic substitution and the comprehensive upgrading of intelligent IoT applications. Yihui Info regards technological innovation as the lifeline of enterprise development, continuously overcomes technical difficulties, expands its technical capability map, and strives to achieve independent controllability in key core technologies.

As a key link in the national innovation-driven development strategy, industrial operating systems are not only the core engine of intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation but also an important barrier to ensuring national industrial security and economic security. Yihui Info actively responds to the national call, deeply engages in independent R&D, and continuously innovates. It is committed to developing domestic industrial operating systems with international competitiveness, promoting the transformation and upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry toward intelligence, networking, and service orientation, and contributing solid strength to the realization of the strategic goal of becoming a manufacturing power.

However, taking the path of independent innovation is not a solo effort driven by individual heroism. It requires the full cooperation of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, such as chip enterprises, software enterprises, manufacturing enterprises, operators, and software developers. Through in-depth cooperation and resource sharing, technical complementarity and collaborative innovation can be achieved. Since its establishment, Yihui Info has actively built a product ecosystem, integrated ecological chain resources, promoted the continuous emergence of new technologies, new products, and new business formats, and jointly constructed a complete ecosystem that is open, inclusive, and sustainable.

Currently, domestic operating systems are still in a stage of steady growth in the technical field, and there is still room for improvement in their performance. In addition, the wave of industrial digital transformation and the country’s support for independent hard technology in recent years have also provided opportunities for their development. Yihui Info stated: "The company’s current development goals are, on the one hand, to solve some bottlenecks in independent core technologies; on the other hand, to provide truly advanced and reliable basic software infrastructure platforms for the industry, thereby more effectively supporting industrial development and more powerfully empowering the new type of industrialization." For a long time, Yihui Info has adhered to customer demand orientation, continuously overcome technical difficulties, expanded its technical capability map, continuously innovated products and solutions, and promoted domestic operating systems to move forward from "usable" to "easy to use."

For Yihui Info, the enterprise has achieved milestone progress on the path of domestic independent R&D, leading China’s industrial operating systems to realize the transformation from non-existence to existence and from backwardness to catching up, providing strong support for the modernization transformation of China’s industry. Facing the urgent demand for digital transformation in the manufacturing industry today, Yihui Info will still be oriented to independent R&D, with the vision of building a Chinese brand in software architecture and operating systems, and will further improve reliability, security, and ease of use, shouldering the mission and responsibility of serving the country through science and technology!