Competition in platform ecology is fierce, Hollysys XMagital breaks through with "on-demand and free definition"
As a major supplier of global intelligent system solutions, Hollysys has helped more than 35,000 customers complete industrial automation and intelligent construction in the past 30 years, and has vigorously promoted the localization of key control systems and industrial software. Recently, Hollysys Group held the "Harmony and Coexistence, Intelligent New Journey" XMagital Freely Defined Intelligent System Conference in the ancient capital of Xi'an, attracting more than a thousand experts and corporate representatives from process industries, discrete manufacturing, transportation and other fields.
At this conference, Hollysys launched XMagital, a new freely definable intelligent system. This is not only the birth of a product, but also a key step for Hollysys to build an industrial intelligent ecological platform in the "software-defined" era. It also represents the domestic industrial automation giant joining the global platform ecological competition.
Three core advantages, unlocking a new freely definable intelligent system
At present, we have entered the VUCA era. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity are completely reshaping the rules of the game in the industrial market. Against this background, the technical pain points of traditional industrial automation systems are becoming increasingly prominent. Industrial software generally adopts the ISA95 layered architecture, resulting in business fragmentation, system islands, and low efficiency of cross-layer process collaboration. At the same time, the industry's internal volume has intensified, and enterprises are facing the dual pressures of rising costs and efficiency bottlenecks.
As industrial intelligence enters the deep water zone, problems such as data fragmentation between traditional DCS, PLC systems and enterprise management software, high customization costs, and difficulty in AI integration are becoming increasingly prominent, all of which have become bottlenecks hindering the development of the industry. Faced with the above challenges, the field of industrial automation is accelerating its evolution towards the three major trends of platformization, agility, and intelligence.
The XMagital intelligent system came into being in this era. The "X" in its name represents infinite possibilities and free definition, while "Magital" is a clever combination of Magic and Digital, which profoundly interprets the integration of intelligence and digitalization. As a new set of freely definable intelligent systems, XMagital has built a full-chain production control integrated system covering on-site intelligent equipment, production control systems, and production management systems. This system not only breaks through the barriers between the control layer and the management layer, but also realizes the full life cycle management of smart factories from planning and design, integrated implementation, operation and maintenance to updating and transformation. In essence, XMagital is not just industrial software, but a CPS (cyber-physical system) that integrates intelligent equipment and industrial software, and has the ability to evolve by itself.
Fang Lei, Co-President of Hollysys Group, explained in depth how XMagital breaks through the transformation difficulties with the three concepts of "native integration, open ecology, and comprehensive intelligence":
Native integration: Through multimodal data fusion, integrated control and orchestration, integrated task scheduling and other key technologies, IT and OT are integrated to reconstruct the hierarchical splicing architecture of the manufacturing pyramid, break the data barriers between industrial sites and enterprise management, and achieve full-scene and full-link connection from L0 to L3, solve the problem of separation between traditional DCS, PLC systems and enterprise management systems, and provide integrated, sustainable and scalable solutions for the construction of smart factories.
Open ecosystem: Breaking the long-standing "software and hardware binding" model in the field of industrial automation, users can choose different hardware according to their needs. The system supports containerized deployment and adapts to a variety of application scenarios. Based on unified and open protocols and model standards, a broad ecosystem is built to attract many partners such as users, integrators, universities, research institutes and open source organizations to share results. Customers can freely choose and integrate devices and applications APPs/Agents that meet platform standards, avoid vendor lock-in, achieve interconnection and interoperability, and stimulate industrial innovation.
Comprehensive intelligence: Integrate cutting-edge AI technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, and large models to provide users with all-round intelligent tools. At the same time, use open source large models such as DeepSeek and Tongyi Qianwen combined with large model frameworks such as LangChain and LangGraph, as well as large model technologies such as RAG, MCP, and Function Call to build the basic framework and capabilities of industrial agents, providing innovative solutions for engineering design debugging and global optimization of production control operations.
s Zhu Yiming, chief engineer of the Central Research Institute of Hollysys Group, said in his report at the press conference, industrial software is essentially a carrier of industrial knowledge, and the core differences between different industries stem from the process knowledge and control theory behind it. Therefore, it is impossible to build a system that meets the needs of industrial production by relying solely on IT technology. The open ecological concept upheld by Hollysys XMagital integrates the professional knowledge of process experts, engineers and operation managers, transforms these professional knowledge into software applications, and combines AI technology to form full-process intelligent manufacturing capabilities, so that XMagital can better cope with various challenges in the development of industrial intelligence, provide customized solutions for different industries, and promote the industrial field to a new height.
XMagital technical architecture innovation, full-scenario empowerment of industrial upgrades
Through in-depth exploration of Hollysys XMagital intelligent system, it is not difficult to find that the birth of this system is not only the crystallization of technological accumulation, but also a precise response to the current challenges of industrial intelligence. The core of XMagital's technical architecture is to deeply understand and respond to this rapidly changing market demand, and through a series of innovative designs, subvert the construction and operation mode of traditional industrial systems.
Specifically, XMagital adopts a flat "1 platform + N applications" collaborative framework. This design fundamentally solves the problems of coordination difficulties and inconsistent data interfaces in traditional layered architectures. Through a unified data model and service-oriented components, it not only supports the flexible development, deployment, implementation and operation of various industrial applications/industrial agents, but also paves a smooth road for the future reconstruction, upgrade and maintenance of the system, greatly reducing the complexity and cost of system integration.
Unified platform: Based on a unified management and control platform, build full-scenario applications for safe production, efficient operation, and intelligent decision-making in the industrial and infrastructure fields to achieve centralized management and optimized allocation of resources.
Five application clusters: Including five application clusters of production control operation, production planning and scheduling, equipment asset management, safety and environmental quality management, and business decision management, providing industrial users with customized intelligent management and control integrated solutions.
Data-driven: Clean, extract and process multi-heterogeneous data, establish data associations through equipment models and process models, form a virtual factory model, realize deep data mining and intelligent decision-making, and provide strong support for the production and operation of enterprises.
AI empowerment: Integrate AI general application framework, apply industrial knowledge graph, full-stack model fusion, adaptive model optimization, retrieval enhancement generation and other technologies, provide a framework for industrial intelligent applications, support the creation of industrial intelligent brain, and build industrial intelligent body.
Hollysys also provides a complete set of development frameworks and tools, supports low-code development methods, and greatly helps users, partners and developers to quickly develop new applications. In response to different needs such as new construction and transformation of industrial sites, cloud-edge hybrid deployment of large group enterprises and local server deployment of small and medium-sized enterprises can be completed through a freely tailorable system integration mode. This flexible deployment method enables XMagital to adapt to the needs of enterprises of all sizes, meet the full scene of smart factories (from industry to infrastructure, from equipment, production lines, workshops, factories to groups) and all links (from design, integration, production, operation and maintenance to services), comprehensively improve production efficiency and reduce manufacturing costs.
From the perspective of industry application and practice, XMagital provides differentiated solutions for different industries such as process industry, discrete manufacturing, and infrastructure. For example, in response to the long industrial chain of process industry, large fluctuations in production control operations, low efficiency, and a wide variety of equipment assets, Hollysys provides XMagital production control operation application cluster, production planning and scheduling application cluster, equipment asset management application cluster, safety and environmental quality management application cluster, and business decision management application cluster, integrating AI technology to help process industry achieve intelligent, efficient and sustainable comprehensive leap.
In view of the small batch, multi-variety and high flexibility production characteristics of discrete industries, XMagital provides a unified basic environment and standards to adapt to changes in production lines. It is worth noting that based on the XMagital intelligent system, Hollysys Xi'an Factory has currently achieved a deep integration of IT and OT, management and control, production and materials, and uses applications to drive industrial sites to achieve intelligent scheduling, production line collaboration, intelligent quality inspection and intelligent equipment diagnosis. In addition, in the field of infrastructure, XMagital has created a comprehensive business platform for smart urban rail with rail transit users, covering applications such as smart operation and maintenance, smart stations, and smart scheduling.
gongkong® Viewpoint:
The current industrial automation market is undergoing structural changes. The traditional competition model centered on hardware is gradually declining, and leading companies have turned to the track of software-defined manufacturing and platform-based ecological construction. Leading companies such as Siemens, Schneider Electric, ABB, etc. have all launched their own platforms to provide users with overall solutions by integrating hardware, software, and service resources. Behind this trend is the urgent need of the manufacturing industry to improve production efficiency, reduce costs, and achieve flexible and agile production.
The XMagital system released by Hollysys focuses on intelligent manufacturing and digital infrastructure construction, focusing on integrated management and control solutions, providing enterprises with a freely definable intelligent system platform, realizing "interconnection, interoperability, plug-and-play, and production". With the application and promotion of the XMagital system, it will accelerate the intelligent transformation of industrial enterprises, help enterprises break information silos, achieve data interoperability and collaboration, and improve the level of intelligent production, management, and decision-making.
Observing the development of global industry, innovations from 0 to 1 mostly come from Europe and the United States, but large-scale implementation from 1 to ∞ is more realized by China. Whether XMagital can reconstruct the entire industrial production scenario and release the value of intelligent applications depends on the breadth of future ecological construction and the depth of industry implementation. This is not only a test faced by Hollysys, but also a key node in China's industrial intelligent transformation. Its effectiveness will be verified in the in-depth application cases of leading customers in the industry. Gongkong.com will continue to pay attention to this key variable in reshaping the industrial landscape.