The 2019 Zhongshan Intelligent Manufacture Talent Forum (Smart Lock Session) was held on March 29.[Photo by Yu Zhaoyu]

"Zhongshan Locks" are famous at home and abroad. There are over 180 lock manufacturers and up to 5,300 supporting enterprises in the city. Zhongshan lock industry can generate more than 10 billion yuan of output value per year and occupies over 40% of the domestic market share. The city's smart lock industry, specifically, accounts for about 20% of the total domestic output value.

However, in 2018, tech giants such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Netease and 360 surprisingly crossed the border and entered the smart lock industry. What should Zhongshan lock firms do facing the increasingly fiercer market competition? 

During the 2019 Zhongshan Intelligent Manufacture Talent Forum (Smart Lock Session) held a few days ago, experts from across the country communicated with local enterprises and provided some ideas.

La Lei, executive director of the experiment center of the School of Information Technology & Management, University of International Business and Economics, believed lock makers in Zhongshan can focus on such areas as lock and security artificial intelligence technology and bring in relevant talents. Meanwhile, local lock companies can join forces to build a big data platform to make good use of their statistics.

Cai hongtao, vice director of the Electronic Information School, Wuhan University, said security level of the smart lock depends on the mechanical lock itself and the network it connects to. Presently, network security vulnerability will be the greatest threat to smart lock. So far, we can use physical measure, information encryption, gateway isolation, information isolation and other approaches to counter network security problems. As network security has become a national-security issue, Cai believed smart lock safety will be increasingly improved in the future.